


Wisely Chosen Faces

by SierraBravo



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Underworld (Movies)
Genre: Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, Multi, Other, Poly ship triangle thing, Prepocalypse, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Wolfsnake, angelic wolf snake, fast burn, occasional patches of plot popping up but not much, set before the underworld film the first one but not by much, some smut, spot of art chapter when i get too bad at writing a picture's 1k words right so, this may technically be crack but I'm invested and taking it too seriously now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2020-08-18 19:31:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 44,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20196937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SierraBravo/pseuds/SierraBravo
Summary: The person who had crashed into him turned to look at him, made some sort of unintelligible noise which might have been an apology or insult, and ran on, long dark and rain wet hair whipping Crowley's sunglasses off in the process.Crowley did not pick up his sunglasses. Crowley did not react to the two gun wielding goths who followed his attacker with a speed that definitely wasn't human. Crowley frowned, and cocked his head in confusion."Angel?"





	1. Wolf Man

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set in ambiguously the not super distant past. Not 2003 specifically, but pre announcement of world ending. Prepocalypse, if you will. With regards to Underworld it's set, well, before the movie. Significantly later than Rise of the Lycans. Please imagine any and all background characters in 2002 era fashion, if it brings you joy.

Crowley was not drunk. At least, not drunk enough. The demon had just stumbled out of a night club after some serious tempting. He was back to his usual shape, mostly male partially snake, but still wearing his lipstick and miniskirt from earlier, the latter of which had some vaguely hand print like smears of body glitter. He could, of course, change his clothes with a snap of his fingers, but he rather liked the skirt, and he had applied the lipstick with an actual stick of lip, carefully in the mirror of the club bathroom, with at least twenty young women asking her to just get on with it for fuck's sake, there was a line, and so the effort seemed worth keeping it on for a while. Besides, the crimson suited him.

If he was entirely honest with himself, he was feeling a bit lonely. Aziraphale, his only real friend, his- well. His adversary, his frenemy (a phrase he had not invented, but had claimed to in a long list of minor acts of evil he had sent to Hell recently), his, well. His something. His _something_ Angel had been out of the country doing Satan knew what for over a month now, and you just couldn't talk to humans in the same way. They didn't _understand_. Some of them came close, but there were some things you couldn't quite get in just a few decades on this spinning pebble.

Crowley lit a cigarette he had snuck out of the pocket of one of the ladies she had tempted. Again this was not because he could not simply will one into existence, but because every little bit of evil helped. If Aziraphale had asked, however, he might have argued he was saving her from lung cancer. Either way, it was something to do as he tried to decide where to go from here. He had exhausted his to-do list of temptations for the week, and it was only Thursday. He was, however, saved the trouble of thinking by someone crashing into him, followed by the sound of gunshots. This was followed by quite a lot of screaming.

The person who had crashed into him turned to look at him, made some sort of unintelligible noise which might have been an apology or insult, and ran on, long dark and rain wet hair whipping Crowley's sunglasses off in the process.

Crowley did not pick up his sunglasses. Crowley did not react to the two gun wielding goths who followed his attacker with a speed that definitely wasn't human. Crowley frowned, and cocked his head in confusion.

"Angel?"

\--

The moon, full and bright, shone down on the alley. Crowley was snake shaped, curled around a pipe, and watching as the man who looked far too much like his angel hid from the gun wielding inhuman goths behind a dumpster. This had been preceded by the man trying to reload his guns, some rooting through pockets, and what Crowley judged to be a sensible amount of swearing.

Crowley had followed the man primarily by magic, as the Bentley did not, as a rule, cross rooftops well, and Crowley's shoes were not made for running. He had also tried calling Aziraphale a couple of times, but the bastard had refused to pick up, just because he was in a different country than his old rotary telephone, and kept conveniently losing the mobiles Crowley left on his desk. The chase had lasted for a good half hour after started observing, or joined in, depending on how you looked at it, and had covered substantial amount of central London. Crowley had deduced, so far, that none of the people involved were humans.

He slithered down from the pipe, silently, until he was next to the man, who glanced at the small snake but kept peeking out from behind his cover, looking for the aggressive gun goths.

"I think they're gone," Crowley said, as he transformed back to his more human shape.

He chose to manifest some trousers, this time. Humans got weird about the gender thing, and confrontational, and that was not quite what he was looking for from this interaction.

"What the hell?" the man exclaimed, scrambling back, although not with quite the amount of shock Crowley would have expected from a standard issue human.

"Yes, precisely," he said, because Hell invented puns.

"Those supernatural entities who followed you are gone," Crowley said, approaching the edge of the alley, and sneaking a look to either side to confirm.

"Yup, gone."

"Supernatural entities," the man parroted.

"The very speedy people with guns," Crowley clarified.

"They thought they saw you head South from here," he added helpfully, although the man did not look as if this helped clear things up.

The man looked, however, astoundingly like Aziraphale, or at least like a version of him. This man was younger, a bit skinnier, and had long, tangled dark brown hair, and a beard. The most jarring difference, despite his lack of a constant low level angelic glow, visible to demonic and angelic eyes only, was the fact that he was dressed in black. Aziraphale always dressed in whites and beiges and the occasional light sky blue. There was something more to it, though. Crowley sniffed the air, frowned, and stuck out his (forked) tongue to taste it.

"Why do you smell like wet dog?"

The man's face went through a journey that started with a frown of confusion, transitioned into a frown of anger, and ended up in a frown of dismissal.

"I don't have time for this," he said, and rose.

"**Stop**," Crowley said, and he did.

The man tried to move his legs, and found that they really, really did not want to be moved. His eyes paled, pupil whitening and spreading like a star.

"Oh," said Crowley, "now that's interesting."

He lowered his sunglasses to show off his own eyes, letting the yellow spread and cover the whites entirely, not to be outdone in this department. The man's eyes snapped back to a dark hazel.

"What the hell are you, and what do you want with me?" the man demanded with a growl that, coupled with the face of Aziraphale made Crowley shiver and feel things that he promptly shoved down into his unconscious to deal with at a much later date.

"Yes," he said, and grinned at the burst of frustration in the man's face.

"I am from Hell," he added, "and I would like to know why you have my friend's face. And, to be honest, still curious why you smell like wet dog. Can tell you're not exactly human, but..."

He shrugged, indicating his inability to identify the exact kind of occult creature the man was. The man growled, again, and if Crowley had had any sort of genitals at that moment, they would have been, well, doing their thing, signaling their interest, as it were. Thankfully he hadn't bothered to manifest any. As he was patting his past self on the back for this wise decision, the man's face did something curious. It began to warp, uncharmingly, to change and expand and grow fur and fangs, as the did the rest of the man's body, for a few seconds, before he retreated back into human form lest the mass of him destroy his clothes.

"Ah," said Crowley, "same."

And he showed the man his true face, or at least the large and monstrous snake version of his true face, which also included rather a lot of fangs, and more eyes than were, perhaps, strictly necessary. The man's eyes grew wide and worried in an upsettingly familiar way.

"What," he asked, "the fuck?"

He had clearly learned his lesson about the expletives. 

"So. Wet dog. Moon. Werewolf?"

The man shook his head violently.

"Lycan," he said.

"As in lycanthrope, I assume. So. Werewolf."

The man sighed.

"It's... a similar concept," he conceded, his voice pained.

"Excellent. And I'm a demon, just to get that out there. And the gothy fellows who were following you, with all the guns?"

"...Vampires," the man admitted.

"Fun," Crowley said.

"Right, what's your name?"

"Lucian."

"Lucian the lycan," Crowley said in a sing song voice, looking, he knew, quite pleased with himself.

Lucian grimaced in just the way Aziraphale did when Crowley handed him a cup of tea made with microwaved water. It really was a quite fascinating resemblance.

"Not like I bloody chose it, is it?"

Crowley shrugged.

"Crowley," he said, to be polite.

"You're a demon snake thing?"

"Bit of a rude way to put it, but yep, that's me. Demon snake. Not a thing."

Lucian looked like he was about to argue, frowned as if having some sort of inner argument with himself, and then shrugged.

"And what do you want with me, specifically, so badly that you won't let me move even after I've satisfied your curiosity?"

"Only partly," Crowley said, and walked closer, till his face was only inches from Lucian's.

"I want to know," he said, fingers ghosting over Lucian's cheek, down his neck, in a way he could tell affected the wolfman, "why you're wearing my friend's face."

"I'm not. It's _my_ face. Had it all my life. I don't know what sort of answer you're after, but sometimes people just look like other people, all right?"

Crowley squinted at him.

"Mmmnot sure I believe that. But," he said, brows knitting together in concentration, "you don't feel like you've stolen it from him, either. You sure you've had this face since before June?"

"Very."

"I suppose you'd know. Vampires are the one who can't do mirrors, right?"

The werewolf did not reply.

"Right. Let you go for now, I promise, but you're gonna have to satisfy my curiosity on one more thing, all right?"

"I... fine. As long as you let me go. I've got things to do, places to be."

"Moons to howl at?"

Lucian just looked at him, eyes narrowed.

"Something like that."

"Right. Be quick, then, promise. 'S just I've been wanting to know this very specific thing since 4004 BC."

Lucian looked like he was about to have more questions for Crowley, but he didn't have the chance to ask them, because Crowley took his face in his hands and kissed him. Lucian's lips were surprisingly soft, surrounded by the prickle of beard, and his mouth warm with only the faintest weird aftertaste of what Crowley assumed was the wolfy part. Then there were fangs, and Crowley pulled back hastily.

"No need to bite," he said, hands up in surrender.

"Unless it's in a sexy way," he added, with a wink that was lost behind his glasses.

Lucian looked like he was torn between wanting to ask a number of questions, and wanting very badly to get out of there. Crowley sighed.

"Fine," he said, and snapped his fingers, and materialised himself away and into the Bentley.

\--

"What the fuck?" Lucian demanded of the empty alley, and rubbed at his mouth, dark red lipstick staining his hand, now, too. He tested his ability to move, and, finding it back, started running in what he hoped was the opposite direction of the demon.

\--

To: azfell@fellandcobooks.co.uk  
Subject: ????

Angel, not sure whether you know how to read your email, know I taught you last year but who knows how long that lasted, you were more interested in the cocoa I had to bribe you with. Anyway. Weird dog man running round with your face? You still got it, wherever that business trip is taking you? 

-Wiliest of Serpents

PS. Bring some of that nice wine will you? You know the one.

PPS. Ever considered growing a beard?


	2. Wolfsnake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Further email exchanges, Wolfy showi-off-ness, Lucian isn't a fan of Crowley's interior decorating.

About a month later, Crowley received a reply to his email.

To: ineffablesnake69@hellmail.co.uk  
Subject: RE:????

My dearest serpent, hereditary enemy and beloved friend, I hope this finds you well. I hope, also, that you received the postcard I sent you, from Florence, the one with the small kitten that looks like it has built the cathedral? In the little hard hat? It made me think of you. I have had a lovely trip so far, they have so many old books here! And on such interesting subjects. The even have a document by a prophetess so obscure I didn't know any texts had survived! All nonsense, of course, but such fascinating nonsense! And the wine here is divine, though only metaphorically speaking, and so I think you would have enjoyed it too. I shall be sure to bring you some bottles to try in addition to the ones you requested.

Now, regarding the second part of your electronic letter, I am not sure I quite understand, my dear. A dog man? Is this some new demonic activity I should be aware of? I am still in possession of my face, I checked it just now in the mirror, to be sure. Please clarify further.

I have not considered growing a beard, no. I shall leave that to you, my dear. I thought your stab at it around 1500 was rather fetching. Would you consider bringing that back, perhaps?

I shall be returning to London in another week or two, I think. Perhaps we could go to that new French place that opened by your flat? I hear they do simply marvellous crêpes.

Sincerely yours,  
Aziraphale Z. Fell

To: azfell@fellandcobooks.co.uk  
Subject: RE:RE: ????

Took your damned time, Angel. Starting to think you've found a library to settle down and start a family with.

But follow up question; did you ever accidentally impregnate a human woman? Maybe about eight centuries ago? Not sure how it would work, but that was what Gabe did with that bright young lad from Galilee, right? Or at least his mother.

Not bringing that beard back, no. Terribly hard to keep up. A nightmare to straighten, even without doing it the human way.

I'm on for fancy French pancakes, Angel, just ring me when you get back here.

-Wiliest of Serpents

\--

In the intervening month Crowley, worried for his angel's face (it was a very good face, and he would like for the angel to retain it, ideally, forever), had started to accidentally bump into Lucian. The first time was a week after their initial meeting, then a few days after that again. It took him four full weeks to invite him to coffee. It took the werewolf another to agree.

The meetings were neither antagonistic nor particularly friendly at first. The wolfman had seemed not to want all that much to do with him, initially, but temptation was what Crowley _did_. There was a seed of interest in Lucian, and Crowley merely helped it grow. It wasn't forcing someone to do something they didn't want, not really. It was more about helping the choice be made. It was making someone do something they wanted to, but, for whatever reason, felt like they ought not to. Like having a second piece of cake, a third bottle of wine, an affair. And if Crowley had hinted in conversation at the extent of his powers, and that, perhaps, he might do Lucian a favour should he ever need anything? Well, that was just being polite, really.

Lucian had warmed to him quite quickly. Quicker, perhaps, than he would have without Crowley's wiles, but he would have eventually either way. Crowley would just have had to be patient, but, patience being a virtue, it was something he avoided as best he could.  
\--

"Could you show me, then? Properly, not like last time, not just a hint to scare me off?"

Lucian looked at the demon for a while, considering.

"...I suppose I can. Although, I've not got any spare clothes, and I'd rather not go home naked, so I'm going to have to..."

"Uh, mm, yeah, go for it, yup," Crowley said, followed by some vague noises that he hoped failed to communicate that he felt rather positively about the wolfman stripping down in front of him.

There was a hint of a smirk in Lucian's expression, which remained there as he stripped, suggesting Crowley's efforts had been for naught. It was, doubtlessly, not quite the same body as Aziraphale had. For one, there were abs, which Crowley sincerely doubted his angel had ever bothered to cultivate. But both versions, he felt sure, would be absolutely divine. One more literally than the other, but still. 

Lucian tossed his clothes rather carelessly over the back of the sofa, until he stood before Crowley nude. He was muscular, obviously quite fit, and rather pleasant to look at, Crowley felt. They had met enough times, now, that Crowley no longer looked at him and saw a wrong Aziraphale, but simply a handsome wolfman who might have been his younger brother.

Lucian hunched over, a violent movement, as hair began to grow and bones elongated, changed, and made some deeply unpleasant crunching sounds that made Crowley wince. The whole process looked agonizing, and had Crowley not been a demon he might have felt a flicker of guilt for making the poor man go through it when he didn't have to. The noises Lucian made, pained groans transforming into growls through a set of vicious fangs, didn't help either.

It took less than a minute, but felt longer. Lucian towered over Crowley now, even as he stood hunched and bent on clawed paws, breathing heavily. The werewolf looked less elegant than a real wolf, more monstrous and more intimidating. Beastly. Despite and because of this, Crowley thought he looked quite extraordinary. 

"Oh, you make an impressive wolf," Crowley told him, approaching almost cautiously, reaching out a hand slowly, asking permission to touch.

The wolf nodded, a gesture so human it made Crowley laugh. He touched the fur on Lucian's neck, thick and wiry, nothing like the soft and pettable fur on a normal wolf. He took Lucian's hand? Front paw? No, it was more like a clawed hand, he saw, in his own. It was rather larger than his, now, and looked quite capable, should Lucian wish, of crushing Crowley's skull like an egg. But then it shrank, remaining all the while in Crowley's as the claws retracted into nails, fur became a dusting of hair, and dark grey skin paled and warmed and grew softer. It was an odd sensation. When he looked up at Lucian he was human again, mostly. Just the pale blue star burst eyes, and his teeth more like fangs than the blunt human things.

"Would you mind terribly if I kissed you again?" Crowley asked, quite without meaning to.

But Lucian smiled an awfully familiar smile, and pulled the demon closer, taking off his sunglasses with his free hand.

"Feel free," Crowley added, just before their lips met, "to keep the eyes and fangs."

Lucian did.

\--

They were sitting in Crowley's flat, which even Lucian, used to his people hiding out in subterranean tunnels and windowless underground labs, felt went a little overboard with the concrete brutalist minimalism aesthetic. It was a grey box, interrupted only occasionally by hints of decadence. The angel and demon statue, the throne chair, and the wine cellar which had prompted him to ask how on earth the demon had a cellar while living on the fifth floor. Crowley had made vague noises and gestures at Lucian, by which, the lycan assumed, he meant magic. He had also seen a room seemingly containing nothing but plants, and thought it odd, but not enough to ask.

They were enjoying some rather spectacular wine, at least by his standards, which weren't high. He had always thought of really fancy wine as a vampire thing, despite their inability to consume the stuff, and had so shied away from it on principle, but Crowley had offered and refusing would have been rude.

"Why no tails?" Crowley asked, peering at him over his sunglasses.

"I- what?"

"Your wolfy shape. No tail. Why?"

"Don't need one."

The demon frowned.

"What, so it's a choice, then?"

"Of course it's not a choice. I don't know why. I was born like this, all right?"

"Hmm," the demon said, and swirled his glass.

He took his glasses off, and leaned closer, as if if better to see him.

"If..." he said, sounding like someone who was about to say something very stupid and considering not to, "if you were born a werewolf..."

Lucian had given up on trying to correct him on the terminology.

"Does that mean when you were a baby, every month you'd turn into a tiny puppy?"

His yellow eyes grew big.

"Oh, I bet you were a good puppy. Tiny cute ball of fuzz."

He grinned stupidly, looking into the distance, as if visualizing it.

"No."

"Bad puppy, then? Well, as an employee of Hell, I've gotta support that. Good choice. Well, not good. Not the point. Solid? Solid choice."

Lucian sighed, but not entirely without amusement.

"Not a puppy at all, I'm afraid. At least I don't remember the change from before I was about ten or so. And I don't think my wolf form was ever "cute"."

"Well," the demon grimaced, "everything's cute if it's tiny enough. Saw a chihuahua shaped hellhound once. Did you know that's where they originated? Single hellhound got loose in Mexico and fucked a _lot_ of bitches. Not my doing, though."

Lucian smiled politely without an ounce of sincerity, in an effort to show how unlikely he thought this was. Crowley grimaced at him again.

"Whatever. You make a cute human. Well, not cute. Good looking, maybe? Yeah, definitely that."

Crowley interrupted himself by leaning over to kiss Lucian, somehow not spilling his wine in the process despite his glass being, at one point, entirely horizontal. Things like that happened a lot around Crowley, and Lucian was frankly slightly scared to ask, in case other laws of nature stopped working too.

Crowley was an excellent kisser. Most of the time he kept his tongue forked, which made things interesting. He also seemed to very much enjoy it when Lucian growled, and so he did so with, perhaps, a higher frequency than he usually would. Still very much a slave to the laws of physics, he placed his glass on the coffee table before pulling the demon closer, one hand on his shoulder, the other in his hair, which, despite it only having been about four days since last they met, had grown from short and sticking up to shoulder length. But then, Lucian himself was capable of growing rather a lot of hair very quickly, though not exclusively on his head, so he didn't question this.

Lucian pulled away to catch his breath, something that clearly was not essential for Crowley, as he rarely took the initiative to do so. The demon's eyes were fully yellow again. It was a good look for him. Very good. Lucian's hand, still tangled in Crowley's hair, drew him closer, the kiss softer this time, gentler and featuring fewer fangs. 

"You know," Crowley said, his hand caressing Lucian's cheek, forcing his face into a fond smile, "I think you're the only good thing to come out of the fourteenth century."

\--

Lucian woke from his doze to find Crowley wrapped around him. Quite literally wrapped around him, in his snake form. Crowley was quite a large serpent at the moment, almost the width of Lucian's upper arm, and had coiled himself around every available part of the lycan, his scaled head resting against Lucian's chest. The demon had, either before he became a snake or through whatever his magic was, unbuttoned two of his shirt's buttons, so that his head rested against his skin, just under the amulet he wore. His eyes were wide open, as, being snake eyes, they had no other choice, but Crowley seemed to be asleep, his breaths a barely detectable rhythm against Lucian's skin.

He extricated his arm from the shining red and black coils, and carefully, as lightly as he could, stroked a finger over the smooth scales. There was something far more intimate about this moment, than the others they had shared. The serpent seemed so peaceful. It felt satisfying, almost, like Lucian had earned his trust, because the demon usually, despite his lounging and sprawling, his lazy movements, had a frantic sort of energy about him. Like the cool calmness was, mostly, a carefully constructed exterior over an inside that consisted primarily of erratic exclamation marks.

The petting must have felt good to Crowley too, because Lucian saw his eyes start to move, the smallest twitch of the tip of his tail, before the snake carefully stilled again, presumably so Lucian would go on stroking him. The lycan happily obliged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I've pet 3 wolves in my life, and they were all super soft. Granted, the oldest one was only a year, but I assume they stay soft and pettable throughout. Lycans look significantly less pettable, which saddens me.  
-Would also like to note that I'm not particularly horny for hot werewolf michael sheen primarily because he's particularly muscular in these films, but because like rebel leader? Freer of his people? Hot. The sort of thrift store semi goth unnecessary fur collar look? My jam, if not hot specifically. Werewolves? Hot. That hair + beard combo? Hot. That one scene where he rips his shirt off and has the pretty werewolf eyes plus fangs? Extremely Fucking Hot.  
-And on a last note, if you enjoy this fic but wish there were more angels and less werewolves, I've got another one that's mostly the ineffable husbands being very domestic and Crowley running away from confrontations by snaking out a lot, which you can find on my ao3 profile. Or find me on tumblr @indiasierrabravo and convince me I need to draw this very hot and slightly cracked ship. Please. I need someone to blame.


	3. Date Night 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale's returned to London, and he's on the hunt for crêpes.

To: ineffablesnake69@hellmail.co.uk  
Subject: RE:RE:RE: ????

Crowley, my dear, what on Earth are you talking about? You know full well that it's not the sort of thing I would do. There are quite strict rules about this sort of thing, and Gabriel did not have sexual intercourse with Mary, he simply blessed her with a child. The fa- err, the other mother, I suppose, was Herself, and She does not have time for such silly human activities. Where did you get this funny little idea from, at any rate?

Would crêpes at that French place at noon the day after tomorrow suit you?

Sincerely yours,  
Aziraphale Z. Fell

\--

There was something that was bothering Crowley, that much was clear. He kept looking between his mobile telephone and Aziraphale and frowning, barely even touching his crêpe, although he had drained two glasses of his wine in the twenty minutes they had been there. Aziraphale, though it pained him greatly, put down his fork, letting his food be exposed the cold air for longer than was necessary, risking it growing cold and less pleasant, and leaned over to touch Crowley's hand.

"Are you all right, Crowley? You seem... A tad distant?"

The demon looked up sharply, a sort of wild look in his eyes barely visible through his glasses. His hand twitched under Aziraphale's, but he did not remove it.

"Ye- yep. All good. All excellent. Why? Is it not good? They made you bad crêpes? I could make the chef have an... Accident, if you'd like? Nothing to it, just a knife being sliiightly more slippery than usual..."

"Crowley!" Aziraphale exclaimed, although his outrage was mostly for show.

"Fiiine, Angel, I'll just make him spill batter all over himself, then, that'll do I suppose."

"Crowley," Aziraphale said again, calmer but equally stern.

"Oh all right. Nothing, then. Heat your food up again for you?" He said, eyebrows raised, a free hand ready to snap his will into being.

"Well, I mean, if you insist," Aziraphale replied, and tried his best to look celestially innocent in a way that usually made Crowley do what he wanted him to.

"I really don't," Crowley said, but snapped his fingers, causing the angel's plate to start steaming gently, the aroma suffusing the air around them once again.

Aziraphale smiled his thanks to the demon, who smiled sarcastically back. He tried a piece.

"Oh, you made it better! Thank you so much, my dear, you are too kind."

Crowley snarled, and was about, Aziraphale suspected, to launch into a tirade about how terrifically evil and awful he was, almost all of which they both knew to be lies.

"I'm-"

"Crowley, dear, we're in public. You can tell me off on the ride home."

Crowley fumed, looking quite like angry steam might rise from him at any moment, hellfire imminent, but he was distracted, thankfully, by a waiter refilling his glass. 

"Now," Aziraphale began between bites of an absolutely delightful crêpe, filled with some kind of mushroomy conconction that definitely seemed to have been in the immediate vicinity of some alcohol not too long ago, "what has been going on while I've been away? Your electronic letters, though it was, of course, lovely to hear from you, rather failed to make it clear what was happening. I've been quite worried, you know."

Crowley made a series of grimaces and noises that, while entertaining in themselves, were not precisely helpful. Aziraphale attempted to communicate this with an encouraging go on sort of noise of his own through another mouthful of crêpe. Crowley sighed, and ran a hand through his hair, which he to Aziraphale's delight had let grow longer again. Aziraphale had always thought, though he had not told Crowley this, that he had looked his absolute best on the day they first met, and had been a little disappointed every time the demon wore his hair shorter. He had claimed to be following human fashions to blend in, but to be perfectly honest the demon never blended in to any crowd. He was too striking for that.

"And so I met this man," Crowley said, and Aziraphale suddenly became aware that he had been lost in thoughts about the demons hair for what seemed to have been several minutes.

"Ah, err, a human? Yes, they are rather everywhere these days. Bit of a nuisance, really."

"No, not a damned human. Haven't you been listening? Werewolf, I think. Did you know there were werewolves? I thought humans had made them up. But apparently there's loads of 'em, only they've been hiding out in the middle of Romania for about a millennia. Along with vampires. Was aware of those, though. Hung out with Vlad Țepeș once. Bit of an asshole, really, but great taste in wine. Anyway, so this wolf man, he's being chased by some vampires. Apparently there's a bit of a chilly war going on, and he's pretending he's dead, which doesn't seem to be going too well."

Crowley stopped for what Aziraphale thought was a breath, but turned out to be a sip of wine.

"I.. I think I heard something about it in the late eighteen hundreds. Of course, you were asleep by then. But I didn't realise it was still an issue."

"You didn't think to tell me werewolves were real?"

Aziraphale blushed, and covered it up with a sip of wine.

"Ah, well, I thought you knew?"

"Angeeel, really? We went to see The Wolf Man together when it premièred! Satan's sake."

"Well yes, that's it exactly. You said it was unrealistic! How else was I meant to interpret that?"

"As an insult to the make up people! I can't believe you, Angel."

Aziraphale wanted to ask why Crowley would want to insult the make up people, who he felt sure were lovely people who were trying their best with the technology they had available to them at the time, but these kinds of discussions with the demon were rarely productive.

"Ah, well. Now you know, I suppose. Now, what was it about this particular werewolf? Did he bite you? Are you worried you're going to turn into a werewolf now? Well, in that case, let me assure you, celestial, and, err, occult beings are safe. I can miracle away the, uh, venom, if you like?"

"He didn't bite me. Weeelll not hard enough to break the skin, anyway. Safe as houses, me. No. The thing is. The thing. Is."

Crowley fumbled in his pocket for his mobile telephone. Aziraphale tsked.

"Is this really a moment for making calls, my dear?"

"Shut up," Crowley said, typing away, which Aziraphale felt was ruder than necessary, even for the demon.

"Here," Crowley said, holding the screen up for the angel to see.

Aziraphale squinted. The tiny screen had a picture of what appeared to be a human. White, dark hair and beard. Possibly some eyes in there, somewhere. That was all he could make out.

"Yes..? That seems to be a person. I'm not sure what you want me to see."

Crowley made a confused noise, and squinted at the picture.

"All right, fair enough, it's not the clearest picture. Sales lady swore up and down this was the best camera phone on the market, but it's quite shit to be honest. Hmm. Hold on. Stay perfectly still, Angel-"

Crowley leaned in, holding the phone up to Aziraphale as if it was some sort of weapon. It flashed, brightly, leaving greenish purple spots blinking in and out of Aziraphale's vision.

"What on Earth did you do that for?"

"Here, see?" 

Crowley held the screen up to Aziraphale again, showing the angel a photo of something that might have been himself in the background of a pointillist painting. The demon pressed some buttons, and half a minute later Aziraphale was looking at the darker human figure again. 

"I'm still not sure what you mean, dear?"

"Angeeel," Crowley said, flopping down onto the table, miraculously missing any of the dishes.

"What?"

"Ee oks if oo," Crowley said into the table cloth as a passing waiter tried hard not to look too irritated. Aziraphale smiled apologetically and shrugged at them.

"Pbt," said Crowley, spitting out a piece of napkin.

"He looks exactly fucking like you," he added, making a face at the disapproving waiter's back. 

Aziraphale frowned.

"Show me the pictures again?"

There was, he had to admit, something there. If one ignored the differences in hair choices, and the colouring, there was a hint of similarity in facial structure. Although the eyes in both photographs made up just three of the little coloured squares on the screen, the hue looked to be about the same. 

"Is this what you meant when you asked whether I still had my face last month?"

"What the fuck else would I mean?"

"Well I don't know, Crowley."

Crowley made an exasperated noise, and downed the rest of his wine. Then he looked, consideringly, at Aziraphale, and reached over, grabbed his glass, and downed that one too.

"Crowley..."

"Fine, fine," the demon said, and waved at a waiter, miming the act of pouring.

"Thank you. So, what is it about this man, then?"

"Werewolf. Looks exactly like you. Except the dark hair and beard. And dress sense. Don't you think that's a bit odd?"

"Well, there's billions of humans. Sooner or later one was bound to be born looking like me. I'm sure there are some Crowley look-alikes out there as well, if you're envious."

Crowley made a face at him.

"Can't believe you don't give a shit about this, Angel. Besides, no humans can attain my level of beauty."

The last bit was half a joke, but Aziraphale didn't, exactly, disagree.

"Well, all right. Tell me, then."

"All right. Main point. Werewolf. You seen them transform? And they can do it regardless of the moon, too. It's very cool. Bit ugly when they're all wolfy, but quite cool. And he looks, and I cannot reiterate this enough, almost exactly like you, only with abs and fangs. And he told me all this stuff about immortals? Not real immortals, of course, not like you and me. But, I suppose, an earthly sort of immortality. This one, Lucian he's called, he's about eight centuries old. Which is a lot, I gather, for a human."

Crowley continued on, but Aziraphale got stuck wondering about exactly in what situation Crowley would have seen the man shirtless, and whether he, too, ought to cultivate some more abdominal musculature. It seemed rather pointless to try to gain muscular strength when he could, after all, move the too heavy things with his celestial power, which, incidentally, was how the heaviest boxes of new deliveries got from the doorstep to the back room of his shop for sorting.

"Have you met him many times, then, since you seem to be on first name terms?"

"Well, a few. wanted to learn more about the werewolves. Make sure he hadn't, I don't know, discorporated you and taken your face like some kind of serial killer. And then, you know, we got a bit drunk because I miracled our coffees into booze. And he started telling me all this stuff about how vampires used to keep them, the wolfy people, as slaves, and how he freed his people and have been hunted since? And you know me, bit of a soft spot for rebels, especially when there's gory details about ripping your oppressors to pieces. And so he ended up staying over at my flat, and he's a surprisingly good kisser, for a wolf man, and then he told me how the vampires have been trying to exterminate them for centuries, and evil as genocide is, I can't say I'm for it, personally, especially not the genocide of the monstrous, you know, and seeing as they, the vampires, have silver bullets, I promised I'd help him out and try to figure out how you put holy water or sunlight or garlic or something like that into bullets. Very gun happy, both sides. You wouldn't, I think, approve."

One particular thing in this long rant stood out for Aziraphale, and it was not the part about garlic bullets, although those sounded dangerously delicious. Perhaps mostly dangerous. But that was not what had made his insides transform into a cold and heavy stone.

"I'm- I'm sorry. The, ah, the first thing you do when you meet someone who you claim looks exactly like me is to kiss them?"

"Aww, Angel, don't be jealous. Kiss you too, if you like."

Aziraphale huffed, and used all his celestial powers to conceal the blush persistently attempting to enter his cheeks. He was just about to say that that wouldn't be necessary, thank you very much, he could find perfectly good humans to kiss too, should he so wish, but Crowley had launched into part three of his monologue about how cool werewolves were. 

Despite the demons promises, which were clearly a joke, a _temptation_, Aziraphale felt rather upset in a way he could not quite put his finger on for the rest of their meal. When Crowley turned the generous tip he left into newly useless Francs, Aziraphale did not even notice, and failed to turn them back into pounds as he usually did.

As Crowley drove him back to the bookshop in the Bentley the car played You're My Best Friend, and Aziraphale couldn't help but feel the vehicle was mocking him, somehow. He invited Crowley to come in more out of habit than enthusiasm, but the demon had to deliver a report to Hell, he said. 

The whole day left Aziraphale feeling bad in a way he could not, or at least did not want to, put into words, or, indeed, think about too much. He attempted to drown the cold rock in his stomach with some hot cocoa and Jane Austen, but nothing quite did the trick. In the end, he took a cue from Crowley, and took a thirty hour nap. He dreamed of laughing snakes, cold writhing coils and exposed fangs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I do still have the first camera phone I owned from 2004 (as a """"backup""""), it won't turn on, and so I couldn't see (and also not remember) quite how bad mobile phone cameras were ca. 2002 but like. Pretty bad, right?  
Also, while some might interpret this as me leading up to any sort of breaking up or jealousy or anything, please know I'm attempting to lead up to some sort of poly situation triangle thing. For a demon, Crowley's capable of an awful lot of love.  
Also, yes, I've decided that even in narration, Aziraphale insists on the french spelling for no good reason.


	4. Interlude With Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michael Sheen vs Michael Sheen. The Sheening (1980), if you will.

Lucian had not been having a great year, productively speaking. His search for the right human descendant of Corvinus had been going poorly, and several members of his pack had been lost to the vampires. He had tried, of course, to pressure that bastard Kraven into getting them off his back, but this had not yet yielded particularly good results. Which was why he was laying on Crowley's sofa and drinking wine, despite the demon having gone out to, as he put it, "tempt the Hell into London". Lucian hadn't asked. 

He was laying almost completely horizontally, which made consuming the wine challenging without pouring all of it onto himself and Crowley's no doubt absurdly expensive designer sofa which looked like a plain slate grey square. There was a potted shrub behind the sofa, which gave him an uncomfortable feeling of being watched. Its leaves seemed to rustle disapprovingly. 

It had been about two months, now, since he first met Crowley, and in that short time they had gotten surprisingly close. Lucian wasn't sure why, but he trusted the demon. After all, there was nothing Lucian could give him that he did not already have, except, it turned out, information about lycans, and so it was difficult to see any reason why Crowley would use him. At first it had seemed like the demon was merely interested him, and, quite irrationally, suspected Lucian of stealing his friend's face, but he had seemed to very quickly begin to genuinely like him. And Lucian could not help but genuinely like the demon back. 

Crowley was _fun_. Crowley was absurd and ridiculous and weird, but he was completely unconnected to any of the quite frankly ridiculous bullshit war that had been Lucian's entire life, and that was refreshing. When Lucian had told him of how he had rebelled against the vampire overlords so many years ago, Crowley had told him that he found ripping the throats of one's oppressors out quite sexy. It was, apparently, the sort of person he was. Lucian, personally, did not remember the rebellion as particularly sexy, bu-

Clank.

There was a noise. Noise like something in a keyhole other than a key. A scent that wasn't human, but not Crowley's either. Silent and quick he placed his glass on the table, and was on his feet, stepping softly softly across the lack of a carpet, till he stood where he could observe the front door without being seen. He could hear angry muffled mumbling from outside, and the handle of the door shook. Letting the power of the moon flow through him, irises expanding, shot through with moonlight, fangs and claws growing. Ready to fully transform should it become necessary. 

The door burst open with a crackle of electricity, and, reflexively, Lucian let the wolf overcome him. In seconds he had doubled in size, grown fur and fangs and muscle, and let out what he intended to be a terrifying growl.

"Oh dear!" the intruder exclaimed, hands flying up in surrender, relaxing their hold on a paper bag, which fell to the floor, shattering, crimson liquid seeping through, reading like blood to the wolf's eyes but not his nose.

He snarled, just to be sure. The stranger, who looked oddly familiar, looked at him, a look of not at all sufficient concern on his face.

"Oh," he said, "oh right. Sorry."

He smiled apologetically, and then Lucian sort of saw it. His cheeks crinkled up in the same way that his own did, when he smiled. The eyes, too, looked awfully familiar, though there were an extra line or two around them. His face was just a little rounder and clean shaven in a way Lucian's own only occasionally was. Ah, he thought.

"You must be Lucian," the man said, and stuck his hand out with a rather unconvincing smile. 

Lucian hesitated, then approached him, extending his front hand paw to shake the man's hand. He couldn't think of anything else to do. He didn't particularly want to change back to his human shape, given that his clothes were currently in shreds on the floor, and although, if they really did look identical, very little should be a surprise to this person, whom, based on the smell, he was forced to assume was another demon, although clearly one who consumed more tea and biscuits than Crowley. 

"Lovely to meet you," the man said, with Lucian's voice, distorted, and smiled the tight smile Lucian smiled when forced to be polite to someone he didn't like. 

This was deeply unsettling.

"Is, err, is Crowley home, then?"

Lucian growled softly, then shook his head, correcting himself.

"No, otherwise you would be quite so, ah, hairy, would you. Will you change back, perhaps, so I don't have to monologue? And so I can see whether you really, as Crowley claims, have stolen my face."

Lucian made a garbled noise halfway between bark and snarl, but far softer than either, but the man, demon whatever, just raised his eyebrows expectantly. Lucian deflated, then made the universal gesture of one moment please, which was harder to do with his slightly less dexterous lycan fingers, and slunk into Crowley's bedroom, where he felt fairly sure he'd seen some sort of bathrobe once.

Door closed behind him, he shrunk down, even letting his eyes go back to normal at once, though it made his vision irritatingly blurry for a a few minutes, as his brain readjusted. Sliding open the hidden door of the built in wardrobe, he blinked. Everything in there was black, with only a few pops of crimson. The man had a colour palette. Lucian could respect that. His own approach was, in general, if it's dark enough you can't see the blood stains. 

He grabbed what looked like a satiny sort of bathrobe, which was shorter than he would have preferred, but close enough to what he needed. It had a sigil embroidered on it, only the sigil was formed by a long, skinny snake in red and gold. A real dedication to his aesthetic. The robe only reached the middle of his thighs, yet was clearly made for someone a bit lankier than himself. Oh well. Presumably the strange demon, having, if Crowley was to be believed, existed for many millennia, had seen a thigh before, and would survive two more.

He opened the door, slowly, awkwardly, and re-entered the sitting room, though perhaps in Crowley's flat it could be more appropriately be referred to as the boneless sprawling room. The man who had Lucian's face had his back to him, and was carefully placing several wine bottles onto the coffee table. They seemed to have come out of the bag he had been carrying. The floor, Lucian noted, where the man had dropped the bag, was now spotlessly clean. More so, perhaps, than it had been before. Wine manipulation seemed to be a popular form of demon magic. Or perhaps these two specifically were alcoholics.

"Oh," the man said, turning, "there you are. Oh- Oh, I do rather see what Crowley means."

The man approached, pulling some very old fashioned little glasses out of a pocket in an equally old fashioned coat, and peered at Lucian through them. Uncomfortable, he pulled the robe a little tighter, although it would not quite close over his chest. 

"Like looking into a trick mirror," the man muttered.

Lucian took the opportunity to study his accidental twin further. His hair was absolutely ridiculous. A bleached platinum blonde, curling rather ridiculously in a way Lucian made his own not do by growing it until it was too long for gravity to let it. The man's clothing was absurdly old fashioned, and all in shades of beige and light blue, which blood would definitely permanently stain. Perhaps his magic was primarily centred around removing stains, though Lucian couldn't quite see what would be demonic about that.

The man took a step back, and seemed to take in what Lucian was wearing, and frowned.

"Change destroys my clothes," Lucian said, shrugging and gesturing to the pile of shredded fabric on the floor, "wolf shape doesn't fit."

The man looked immensely relieved, but Lucian wasn't quite sure what about. 

"Oh, I see. Apologies for startling you enough to ruin them. Err, let me," he said, and with a flourishing gesture Lucian's clothes were whole again, all stains gone, and folded neatly on top of the sofa.

"Thank you," Lucian said, his voice going up at the end, as if it were a question, without entirely meaning to.

"Nothing to it, my boy. Now, if you'd like, you can change back, and I'll go make us a cup of tea."

Lucian squinted at him.

"I'm pretty sure that isn't a real kitchen. There's not even pods for the coffee maker. I tried."

"Oh, I'll manage," the man said with a bright smile.

Lucian opened his mouth to argue, thought better of it, and retreated to the bedroom to put on his clothes. They felt newly ironed, all stiff creases. This was a very odd demon indeed. Lucian also could not quite figure out why the demon had suddenly gotten much friendlier. Unless... Unless. Unless he and Crowley were a _thing_. And he had interpreted the bathrobe as- ah. Well, demons, he supposed, had no need to be monogamous, though this one seemed like he might be the jealous type. Best, perhaps, to let them figure that out on their own.

After closing his shirt enough to be decent, but leaving enough buttons open to still be a bit sexy, in case Crowley should return, he went back into the sitting room, and quickly downed his abandoned wine glass. From the kitchen he could hear cheerful humming, the faint sounds of bubbling water. Perhaps Crowley's lived in a show home because he didn't need things to work when he could simply magic them into obedience. 

The man entered, bearing two steaming mugs that did, Lucian had to admit, smell delightful.

"Thanks," Lucian said, as the man handed him one.

"What, ah, what do I call you?"

"Oh. Oh, Crowley hasn't told you?"

Lucian shook his head, and felt a little bad, seeing the flash of hurt in the man's eyes, before the now slightly less genuine smile was back.

"Aziraphale," he said, "pleased to make your acquaintance."

"How come he has a normal name?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Aziraphale. Sounds a bit occult, doesn't it. Crowley sounds like a human name. More or less. Anthony certainly does."

"Oh, he made that up in the forties. People were beginning to get a bit stricter about proper identification, then, kept asking him for a full name."

"Ah, yeah, I remember that time," Lucian said, "but I just switched it up. Harder to track. My... My _owners_ never gave me a last name."

Aziraphale's face scrunched up in sympathy, but he didn't say anything.

"But, Crowley, well, that's his name after he fell, you see. Well, at first it was Crawly, but he changed it about two thousand years ago. It can be challenging to keep up with him."

"Crawly... Because he's a snake? Bit on the nose, isn't it?"

"Well, yes, that's why he changed it, I suppose."

"So, what, you never changed yours?"

"Why on earth would I want to change it?"

"Didn't you just say that demons change their names when they fall?"

"Yes," Aziraphale said patiently, as if there was something obvious Lucian was too dense to understand.

"So... You're not a demon?"

"Good Heavens, no!" the, well, the something exclaimed.

"Of course not! I'm an angel! A principality, in fact, although that's not important."

Lucian blinked.

"Oh."

This explained several things.

"You thought I were a demon? Really?"

The incredulity in Aziraphale's face and voice was almost too much.

"Well, you smell the same kind of inhuman as Crowley. And why would I assume a demon's best friend would be an angel? I thought, well, when he referred to you as his angel I thought it was some kind of endearment, or ironic demonic in joke."

"Shit," he added, because he felt some amount of swearing was required, and then immediately regretted it, in case the angel was taking notes. 

If demons and angels were real, who knew what the rules were. He wasn't planning on dying any time soon, but you never knew. Might be wise to give a good impression.

"A demon, really, it's too much," Aziraphale said, giggling in a way it was deeply jarring for Lucian to see come out of (almost) his own face, "I can't wait to tell Crowley."

A new voice came, then, from the doorway.

"Tell me what?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo yo yo guess who wrote two chapters in a day because they had so many real life tasks to procrastinate on


	5. Interlude With Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snake Crowley (Snowley), Femme Crowley, Lucian being the only one taking any responsibility around here.

Crowley stepped into the light, as dramatically as she could, making sure it caught her sparkling and very short dress.

"What did you want to tell me, Angel?"

"Oh! Crowley! Hello, dear," Aziraphale said brightly, and completely unaffected by her dramatics, which, though disappointing, was expected.

Lucian, though, stared. Crowley had, as far as she could remember, only been male while spending time with him, so the surprise was, she supposed, fair. She sauntered over to where they sat, placing herself between the two of them, pressing kisses to both their cheeks, and immensely enjoy the twin blushes she caused.

"Crowley," Lucian said, "you look... good?"

"Always do," Crowley agreed.

"Oh, Angel, see you brought the wine. Brilliant. Let me just get us some glasses," she said, snapping her fingers and causing two more wine glasses to pop into existence next to the empty one already there, all three filling with wine, rather independently of any of the bottles being opened.

"So, Angel, you believe me now?"

The angel made a face of scrunched up consideration.

"There's certainly some resemblance, I'll give you that. Although he's very..."

Lucian raised his eyebrows.

"Err. Different," Aziraphale concluded diplomatically.

Lucian picked up his wineglass, staring pointedly into it as he drank. Crowley was having fun.

"Listen," she said, slipping an arm around each of their shoulders, realising, belatedly, that this meant no free hand for her wine, "I think you are both _very_ handsome men, good choice in face all around."

Aziraphale spluttered, reached for his tea, spilled some onto himself, miracled it away, drank some, and spilled a little bit more on his trousers and swore as much as he was able. Lucian, on the other hand, nodded. Crowley reached across, miracling the stain away with a swipe of her hand. The physical contact completely unnecessary, of course, but the angel blushed so prettily.

"Ah," the angel said, "well, thank you. And! And look at that, Crowley. You don't have any tea. Let me- Let me go make you some. One moment."

He attempted to extricate himself from the demon without making eye contact, and hurried into the kitchen.

"I can just miracle it up, Angel," Crowley called after him, using all his demonic powers to keep his grin from his voice.

"Won't be the same!" Aziraphale insisted, voice muffled by distance.

She turned to face Lucian, still grinning rather like an idiot. The werewolf had the look of someone accidentally having joined a couple's date and desperately trying to think of a valid reason to leave, considering faking an emergency call. Which wouldn't do at all. Crowley buried a hand (fingers tipped with elaborate snake themed nail art in black and gold, miracled up because who had the patience) in Lucian's hair, and pulled him close, till their lips met softly, the discomfort draining from him.

"You been behaving, wolf puppy?"

"Oh, not at all," Lucian assured him, wine abandoned, one hand on Crowley's cheek, the other on her waist.

"Excellent," Crowley said, and kissed him again, enjoying the way his eyes fluttered close.

Lucian hummed happily into the kiss, but broke away. Needing to breathe or something equally ridiculous and unnecessary, perhaps.

"Listen, I need to ask, now he's out of the room. Are... Are you two, you know?"

Crowley frowned.

"Are we what?"

Lucian looked uncomfortable.

"You know. A _thing_."

"A thing like _we're_ a thing?"

"Or something like it, yeah?"

Had Crowley been paying attention, at this point, she would have noticed the suspicious silence coming from the kitchen. As it was, she found herself distracted by the three open buttons of Lucian's shirt, or at least what they revealed.

"No," Crowley said, carefully avoiding any of the millenniae worth of emotions that this implied.

Lucian frowned, although his confusion did not stop his hand from meandering from Crowley's waist to her thigh, just below the hem of her dress. It rested there, quite innocently, waiting, perhaps, for an opportunity.

"I think he thinks you are. Or hopes. He seemed very relieved at the implication we hadn't... You know. _Known each other biblically_."

Crowley used a not insignificant miracle to keep the emotion from her face.

"He loves you, I'm pretty sure. I know my own lovestruck face. Even if it does come with terrible hair."

He looked down in thought, for a moment, then up again, too familiar hazel eyes heartbreakingly earnest.

"I don't mind sharing you, you know. Although he might."

Crowley took a moment to process what Lucian had said, and then, wordlessly, released humanity's hold on her, collapsing into spirals of shining scales, curling up like a Celtic knot.

\--

Lucian sighed, then jumped as he heard the sudden loud clatter of ceramic shards on stone floor. Aziraphale stood at the end of the hallway, and looked as if he might faint, or teleport away or something. For having known each other for six thousand years, these two had clearly never had a proper conversation about this. Well, it was their awkwardness to deal with or run away from as they saw fit. He lifted parts of Crowley's coils into his lap, something comforting about the almost constricting weight. The snake hissed at him, but rose to curl himself around his neck, head hiding somewhere under his hair.

He spent about ten minutes drinking wine and, appropriately he thought, playing snake on his mobile phone while Aziraphale very, very slowly cleaned up the mess by hand, Crowley peaking out from under Lucian's hair to hiss disapprovingly when he accidentally let the snake become an ouroboros, consuming itself.

When Aziraphale, at last, returned, bearing a new mug of tea, very carefully, Crowley slithered away. Lucian caught him for a second, pressing a kiss to the top of his scaly head, as if he were a pet cat escaping the torture and humiliation of affection, before letting him wriggle very quickly and efficiently into the bedroom where he, presumably through magic, slammed the door shut after him.

"He always been this much of a drama queen? Or she. Fuck. They?"

"He is fine for the snake form, I think. Though I'm not actually sure whether his snake shape has any gender at all. Very superfluous stuff anyway, gender," Aziraphale said, and sipped his tea, "though Crowley's very fond of it. As to the drama, yes, very much so. Comes with the job, I suspect."

Aziraphale's face was neutral, but deliberately so, not out of lack of emotional turmoil. The thing about meeting someone with your own face, Lucian was discovering, was that they were painfully easy to read. 

"Are you..." Lucian began, then trailed off.

"I mean, have the two of you ever... Ever talked about..."

Aziraphale shook his head.

"And have you wanted to?"

Aziraphale hesitated. for a moment, aware, perhaps, of the consequences of actually saying this all out loud. Of submitting to the mortifying ordeal of being honest, and seen.

"Yes."

It was a simple answer, yet Lucian suspected those three letters contained multitudes. He couldn't quite imagine what it would be like. From Crowley said, they had both been on Earth, known each other, though apparently not biblically in that particular sense, for over six thousand years. Nearly eight times as long as he had been alive. An unfathomable amount of time to know anyone. An unfathomable amount of time to be in mutual and understood to be unrequited love.

"If it helps," Lucian said, taking a sip of his inexplicably still perfectly steaming warm tea, "I think he wants that too."

"I'm not so sure," Aziraphale said, and Lucian could hear the cracks spreading through his heart, crumbling.

"Then," Lucian replied with conviction, "you're clearly an idiot."

Aziraphale looked hurt, and Lucian immediately felt bad. Perhaps it was his angelic powers, or the fact he knew what the emotion corresponding to that face felt like. Either way, he didn't like it.

"Look. He finds someone who looks just like you, and immediately starts trying to seduce me. What's that tell you?"

"Well, that he likes this corporeal form, just not the personality that goes with it," Aziraphale said, the last part very, very quiet.

"Why would he hang around you for six thousand years if he didn't like you? No offence to either of us, but we aren't hot enough to warrant millennia of lust if he doesn't like the accompanying personality. No one is."

Lucian ran a hand through his hair. He was not entirely sure why he was doing this, but clearly whatever wasn't going on between the angel and the demon was making both of them miserable. And if he had to watch Crowley kiss someone else, it didn't hurt that it was, mostly, his own face.

"He obviously loves you. Talks about you all the time. I thought, initially, he might just be interested in me as a proxy to getting it on with you."

The angel blushed.

"Oh. Oh no, I don't think-"

"Which it might have started as," Lucian said, ignoring him, "but I think. Well, I hope and I feel like he does like me as me, too. Don't think he'd had been interested in me if I looked like someone else, though."

"Oh, I'm sure that's not true. You seem very... Very his, ah, type."

"Yes," Lucian agreed patiently, "because his type is you."

\--

Crowley was listening. He had become an incredibly, impossibly small snake, slithering under the still closed door, making his way quietly to the dark space underneath the sofa. When he was safely hidden he grew a little larger, just enough to not be accidentally stepped on. That would have been a thoroughly embarrassing way to be discorporated. He imagined filling out the paperwork, the part where you had to explain what happened to your body, and shuddered.

He had made it under the sofa just as Aziraphale had walked back in the room, and had listened very carefully, mentally cursing and, despite himself, blessing Lucian for what he was saying. Werewolves were not, perhaps, known for their subtlety, but to come right out, to just say things like this. Despite his accent he was clearly not from England. Perhaps in medieval Romania everyone was just open and outspoken about their feelings all the time. Horrific. 

There was silence, for a moment, neither one of his... his somethings, his people speaking. He grew, again, expanding to his preferred length, about double that of his human shape's height, and then rose up from behind the sofa, slithering in a pattern around the two men, around arms and necks, binding the three of them together. He didn't say anything, though he could have. Verbal communication was possible in his snake form, but it took more effort. He hoped what he was attempting to convey was clear.

Crowley felt two sets of hands on his scales, gentle touches, and for a moment he wished scales could be as sensitive as skin. But he wasn't ready, not yet, to be a shape that had facial expressions. To be a readable shape. So he was content to feel them both, beneath and around himself, trapped in his coils.

"I'm so sorry, my dear," Aziraphale whispered, "that I never... That I haven't. I was afraid, you see. I am afraid. I care for you so much, and I couldn't bear it if... If someone from either of our side saw. I've seen what they do to people who don't..."

Crowley hissed, and into that hiss he put all his reassurance, his promise to the angel that they would find a way to stay hidden, that it would be all right. He lifted his head until he looked, more or less, into Lucian's eyes. The werewolf nodded at him, pressed a soft kiss to the top of his head. And Crowley curled almost all of himself around his angel, only the tip of his tail resting on Lucian's thigh. 

He nudged Aziraphale's face until his eyes flicked up to meet his, and that smile. Crowley thought he would do anything to see that smile, eyes and cheeks scrunched up in happiness so radiant it almost burned him.

"Love you," he hissed.

"Always have."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen this fic started as a bit of a joke, or a thirst fic, perhaps, but I appear to be taking this ship seriously now. Anyway. High five @batfink for simoultanous appearance of femme Crowley. She's very good.


	6. Date Night 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi, this is a smut chapter. There fairly little else in it, so if that's not your jam, feel free to skip to the next one. If you're reading this before I've written the next one; sorry. Next time, though.

Running.

Running so fast, trees a blur, projectiles whining past him, something sharp in his shoulder.

Pain blooming.

Another shaft penetrating deep into his muscled back, sharp blade hooking itself into soft tissue.

He's still running, as fast as his paws can, on all fours less dignity more speed, he has to get away, has to-

But there's a scream, and it's a scream in the voice he can't run away from.

So-

Lucian opened his eyes, was immediately blinded, and shut them again, attempting to fling his arm over his face to protect them, but finding himself unable to move it. Something heavy on his chest, constricting his breathing, a sound, wrong sound like-

"Shhh," someone hissed.

The someone was a very large snake, who had curled around Lucian as he slept, accidentally trapping his arm. Lucian felt his heart, too fast still, too used to sudden awakenings meaning danger. 

He opened his eyes, slowly this time, and saw the sun was shining in through Crowley's bedroom window at an angle that seemed, frankly, improbable, but was perfectly shaped so as to warm every part of Crowley. The demon was a much larger snake than usual, body as wide as Lucian's thigh, and the weight of five or six meters of that was a lot, even for a lycan.

The snake, seeming to sense something was less than ideal, slid off him, mostly, scales melting away to reveal pale, freckled skin, red hair that looked like fire in the sunlight and warm yellow eyes looking up at him, concerned, from where Crowley's head rested on Lucian's chest.

"Too much?"

Lucian shook his head, but gently slid Crowley's head down on the pillow, turning over onto his side. He slid down the bed a little, till his forehead rested against Crowley's.

"Just. Just couldn't breathe for a moment."

"Sorry," Crowley said, lifting Lucian's hand to his face, pressing soft kisses to his knuckles.

"Just wanted to make the most of the sun. Not... Not quite used to sharing yet."

"It's all right," Lucian said, closing his eyes, concentrating on the warmth of the sun on his skin, the warmth of Crowley on other parts of his skin.

The smell of Crowley's hair, the- Crowley smelled slightly different than usual. Lucian sniffed again, and frowned. Still a demon, that was clear. Still a snake. Still mostly human shaped.

"Something wrong?" Crowley asked, a hand on Lucian's chest.

Lucian, deciding more investigation was necessary, kissed Crowley, a hot open mouthed kiss, tongues twining (Crowley's more than his, what with being forked, and all), and Lucian ran his hand down to Crowley's waist, pulling them close and- ah, that was it. Crowley was still female. Lucian, in an attempt to cover up his confusion, and because he terribly enjoyed it, continued kissing Crowley for as long as he could.

"Nothing wrong," he said, breaking away to catch his breath.

He closed his eyes, frowned, opened them again to see Crowley's, all big and yellow, looking at him.

"Just. Just not used to a partner who can change their body at will."

Crowley raised her eyebrows nearly to her hairline.

"Fine, see your point. Not used to one who can change their gender at will, then. Which, somehow, feels more drastic than accidentally turning into a very large wolf in bed. Which has happened. And is always a bit awkward."

"Can be male only when I'm with you," Crowley offered.

Her face was very carefully expressionless.

"Absolutely not," Lucian told her.

"Be whatever the fuck you want."

He took her face in both his hands, kissing her again.

"Listen. I'm bi, all right? Any gender you can think of, I'll be into it. And because it's you. Long as you don't want to, you know, fool around in snake form, I'm good. Because that would be. Strange. And probably bestiality."

Crowley raised her eyebrows.

"You've never had sex with someone in your wolf shape, then?"

"Course I have. But they were also lycans and also wolf shaped at the time. Same species. And very unemotional, frankly, just a good way to blow of steam after a hunt or fight."

Crowley hummed, possibly visualising this.

"But we're not the same species now. You're a werewolf, I'm a demon."

Lucian opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and frowned. Crowley smirked. One of her hands had moved down to cup Lucian's ass, which wasn't, exactly, helping him think more clearly.

"We're anatomically compatible?"

Crowley scoffed.

"Anyone's anatomically compatible if you believe in yourself and bring enough lube."

She laughed at the face Lucian made, and kissed him.

"No snake sex. Promise."

"Good. Snakes good for very constricting hugs only."

Crowley stuck her forked tongue out at him, but failed to look particularly insulted. He kissed her cheek, her jaw, down her neck, and let his teeth grow into fangs, just for the added sense of danger. He shoved the sheet covering them both down, and pressed a trail of kisses down her chest. He licked at her nipples till they stiffened, Crowley making some delicious moans deep in her throat, one of her hands tangling in Lucian's hair. 

She looked. Well. She looked mostly like her male form with some subtle additions. There were breasts, those were good. Lucian was a fan of those. There was a smaller waist, and slightly less skinny hips. No adams apple or side burns, with the exception of the tattooed snake one. And, further down. He moved, continuing his descent, kissing as he went, until red curls scratched against his lips. Nudged them out of the way with his nose, pressing a wet kiss to her clit.

"Mmf," Crowley said.

She sounded quite pleased. He licked up her lips, then peppered kisses across her inner thighs until he could feel her nails dig into his scalp. He tsked.

"Patience," he said, rising up on his elbows, crawling up till he could kiss her mouth.

"Bastard," she accused, but pulled him into a deeper kiss.

"Probably," Lucian agreed.

Feeling generous, Lucian's fingers found her entrance, rubbing at the sensitive flesh, a finger slipping into that wet heat, prompting a new, delightful and utterly incomprehensible noise from Crowley. She licked into his mouth, dragged her lower lip against his fangs, hissing at the sharp pain. One of her hands found his cock, stroking the hard flesh, making him whimper with need.

"No," he managed, "ladies first."

"Mm, all right then, get on with it," she told him, fingers back in his hair, hooking one leg over his shoulder.

He obeyed, first another kiss to her clit, licking softly around the bundle of nerves, drawing a pleased noise from Crowley, then down, licking into her, as far as he could go.

"Mm," Crowley said, "prickly."

Lucian attempted to tell her shut up, his beard was adding to the experience, clearly, but, what with his tongue being deep inside her, his mouth mostly just succeeded in making her squirm, nails scraping across his scalp, deliciously sharp. He replaced his tongue with two fingers, scissoring them apart to feel her clench around him, curling, attempting to find the one spot that-

Crowley hissed, not like humans do, but the actual snake sound escaping from human lips, and Lucian thought he might have found it. He repeated the motion, and found her clit with his tongue again, giving it a few licks, then sucking at it gently. Crowley made some keening sounds that went straight to Lucian's cock. He thrust his fingers into her faster, continuing to lick and suck at her clit, her nails carving deep red lines on his neck and shoulders until he felt her clench, hard around his fingers, her frantic movements stilling to shudders.

"Mngh," Crowley said eloquently.

Lucian extricated himself from her long limbs, crawling up to lie on his stomach next to her, head resting on his crossed arms, watching her.

"Fuck," Crowley added.

"Just did."

"Mngh," Crowley repeated.

She seemed to summon the strength to roll over onto her side and kiss him.

"Mm," she said, "taste good."

"I taste like you."

"I know. I'm delicious."

Lucian gave a snort of laughter, but didn't disagree.

"Mmm, don't you wanna, you know," Crowley made a rather rude gesture, which in this instance was perfectly applicable.

"Yes. Didn't think to bring condoms, though."

"You realise I can miracle some up, yeah? Though I can't be bothered, this thing," Crowley said, slapping her crotch and wincing, "not connected to anything. Plus I can miracle away any diseases. No need."

"If you say so," Lucian said, and pushed himself up unto his elbows, leaning down to plant a kiss on the tiny snake on the side of Crowley's face.

The demon's eyes fluttered close prettily. Lucian eased her onto her back, she seemed too languid for anything else, then kissed her. He positioned himself over her, sinking in, slow, slow, and then all at once, because Crowley had grabbed his ass and pulled him the rest of the way into her. He closed his eyes, feeling the slick heat of her around him, the muscles clenching reflexively.

"Whenever you're ready," Crowley said with a raised eyebrow, though she had sunk back into the pillows, arms sprawled, but one of her legs was hooked around his back, nudging encouragingly.

He pulled almost all the way out, then thrust back in, groaning, so hard, so close already, just from eating Crowley out, having barely even been touched. Lucian began slow, building a rhythm specifically meant not to send him over the edge too fast. Crowley bucked her hips up to meet him, urging him on, and he sped up, thrusts becoming erratic.

Crowley pushed herself up to whisper something filthy in his ear, and that was it, no control, his hips stuttering, it took only a handful more thrusts until he was spilling into her with a groan.

It was a second or two before he could hear anything other than his own heartbeat. He sunk down, slowly, resting his head on Crowley's chest.

"That was good," he mumbled after a solid two minutes of catching his breath.

Crowley hummed her agreement.

"Would've lasted longer if other parts of me hadn't been inside you, promise."

"Ah, my sweet puppy, you're fairly immortal, yeah? We've got all the time in the world to experiment. But yes. Yes, it was good."

Crowley kissed the top of Lucian's head. They laid there, for a while, in silence, Lucian listening to they way their heartbeats never quite synced up. Possibly, he thought, because Crowley's was mostly for show. Or for hear? Something other than vital functions, at any rate. He lifted his hand to lightly rest it on Crowley's breast, absent-mindedly rubbing his thumb over her nipple, delighting at her sharp intake of breath.

"One thing," Crowley said.

"Mm?"

"I thought werewolf dicks did, you know. That... Thing."

"That thing?"

"With the getting stuck inside, and all that."

"Oh," said Lucian.

"Yeah, can do. Mostly don't. Had, uh, had sex with a human lady, and didn't think about it, and she, ah, was rather surprised. And then she stabbed me. Several times. Tried to cut off my dick. So I've, you know. Not done that for a while. Not worth getting stabbed over."

"Huh," Crowley said.

"It must be pretty good, being able to change your body like that. Being able to try all the different ways to fuck people have come up with," Lucian speculated after a few minutes.

"It is," Crowley agreed, her voice a murmur into his hair.

"Wish I could do that."

Crowley was quiet for a while, running her hand through his hair. He loved these soft, barely conscious touches. Felt good. Felt safe. Soft fingers and scratchy nails. Felt very right. He shook off the uninvited thought that she was _petting_ him, like a _dog_. Felt too good to get in his own head about stuff like that.

"Hmm," Crowley said after a minute or two, "I can't guarantee anything, but I could look into whether I can harness enough demonic power to make that happen for you..."

"Yeah?"

"But not now. Too sleepy."

"We've been awake for less than an hour, Crowley. It's past noon."

"Exactly. So it's the perfect time for a nap."

Lucian didn't argue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not very good at writing smut, but I, uh, did some amount of, ah, research. Purely for writing's sake. Sidenote. Didn't realise until now the unfortunate side effect of writing smut is you're frustratingly horny a lot of the time, which is. Impractical when you write as slowly as me.


	7. Bookshop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts on werewolves.

"Would you mind if I changed, just for a little while?"

"Hmm?"

Crowley looked up from the magazine he was reading. It was telling him about the latest fashion trends, which were all delightfully and horrifically ugly. The 2000s was going to be a good decade, he thought. Lucian looked up at him from over his book (Frankenstein. The man had a theme and stuck to it. Crowley could admire this.), worried look in his eyes.

"It's just. Feels weird, being this shape for so long. You must get that too, right? Why you're a snake so much?"

Crowley looked around. They were in Aziraphale's bookshop, and had been watching it for him all day, as he had had to go out of town for a blessing. Mostly their watching of it had consisted of sitting in the armchairs littered around the shop and looking insulted when customers attempted to walk through the door. When the aspiring shoppers had proved to brave to be denied the promise of books by mere glares, Crowley had walked over to Lucian's chair, straddled him, and they had made out for as long as it took for the customers to give up (and often for long stretches after that, being dedicated to their craft, after all). It wasn't that the shop got a lot of homophobic customers, but more that most people, at least English ones, were put off by the sight of two people kissing, moaning loudly and groping each other within seconds of entering a business. They had not sold a single book. The angel would be proud.

Now, however, the bookshop had been closed for a few hours, and it was dark outside. They had stayed after, not really because Aziraphale had told them to, but because neither really felt the need to leave. Aziraphale's choice in furniture, though, of course, aesthetically appalling and a century and a half out of date, was significantly more comfortable than Crowley's.

"Yeah," Crowley said, running a hand through his hair, "gets stifling sometimes, all this having limbs nonsense. Well, not for you, I s'pose. But something similar. Yeah, go ahead, but maybe we should do that in the back room. 'S not worth it upsetting Aziraphale by messing up his books, believe me. Holds a grudge for years, that man. Lost a single first edition once and he spent the rest of the thirties avoiding me."

"1730s," he added, unnecessarily.

"All right," Lucian said, following the demon, who locked the front door with a flick of his hand.

The back room of the shop wasn't large, but contained significantly fewer books, which made it feel quite spacious. There was a small kitchenette, just about equipped to make a cup of tea or cocoa. There was Aziraphale's desk, on which were several organized piles of what looked to be very old books indeed, as well as an antique miniature filing cabinet, in which he kept his meticulous records. There was a small plant on the desk as well, a succulent, once pale green and rosy pink, but now mostly shrivelled.

"Fuck's sake, Angel," Crowley muttered, picking up a dusty plant mister, filling it, and giving the plant a gentle spritz and admonishing monologue about what would happen to it should it disappoint the angel again. 

When Crowley turned around, Lucian was looking at him, wide eyed, eyebrows raised, carefully quiet.

"What?"

"You okay?"

"Yes? Why shouldn't I be?"

"You, er, were yelling. At the plant."

"Course I was. How else am I meant to get it to behave?"

Lucian seemed to have no answer to this. Crowley turned on all the lights in the room, having checked the curtains were tightly drawn. The he flopped down onto the cozy and beaten up old sofa, on which he, throughout the years, had taken hundreds of naps while Aziraphale read or worked. He nodded at Lucian.

"Go on, then."

"What's with the lights? We've both got quite photosensitive eyes, or at least we both will when I've changed."

"Well, you're gonna strip, aren't you? Gotta have good lighting for that," Crowley said, smirking.

"Fair," Lucian said, and began to unbutton his shirt.

Crowley laced his hands behind his head, following the movement of Lucian's hands. They were very nice hands. Had felt good inside of him. He watched pale skin being revealed, dark dusting of hair across his chest, strong muscles. Watched those muscles move as he slid the shirt from his shoulders, hanging it across the desk chair where his coat already lay, folded, from earlier. Lucian began to unbuckle his belt, and Crowley, unable to resist a bit of temptation, even though that was usually his job, got up, and pulled Lucian into a kiss.

"I like you," he informed the werewolf.

"Well, good, I should hope so. Most people don't get to see me change without becoming dead very shortly after."

Crowley relaxed back into the sofa as Lucian jumped around, inelegantly, attempting to get his foot out of his trouser leg.

"You'd be a shit stripper."

"Ah, there goes my dream. Oh well. Better settle for being the leader of my people for six centuries and counting, then."

Crowley made a face at him. Lucian just smiled, cheeks scrunching up, all innocent. He removed his final piece of clothing, an amulet he always wore around his neck, which Crowley had sensed it was, perhaps, too early to ask about. After having put it safely into one of his coat pockets, it began.

Lucian's eyes were the first to go, irises expanding, shot through with pale blue. He hunched over, head and neck growing, twisting, muscles appearing from nowhere and bulging like they were trying to escape the confines of his increasingly dark grey skin. He rose up on his toes, bones crunching, reorganising, reshaping. Chest growing, claws lengthening. His face pushed out into a short, rounded muzzle, something between an ape and a wolf, blunt and showing off a multitude of fangs. Long, rough fur grew, black, across his shoulders and back, down his chest, covering his groin. It grew at his wrists and ankles, too. It was a strange combination of features, Crowley thought. 

He rose, approached Lucian, taking his now massive head in his hands, getting a better look at him. It was difficult to see any trace of his human face, it was all high cheekbones, massive eyes and jaws that looked like they could crush steel. Lucian closed his eyes, nudged his face softly, carefully, against Crowley's.

"'S all right. I'm immortal, properly immortal, you don't need to be so careful. Worst case scenario I get discorporated and have to do a lot of paper work before they issue me a new body. Come."

With a snap of his fingers the sofa widened and elongated, suddenly fitting in an extra seat. Crowley sat down, almost properly for once, coaxing Lucian down until his huge head rested in Crowley's lap. He lay, somewhat awkwardly, legs curled up, a large, clawed hand resting over Crowley's knees. He sighed.

"Feel better?"

Lucian made a deep half growling sort of noise that Crowley interpreted as agreement.

"Yeah," he said, running his fingers through the thick, wiry mane around Lucian's neck, eliciting a sound almost like a purr, a happy rumbling.

"I always feel, if I stay human too long, like I'm gonna crawl out of my skin. Which I do, you know, I guess that's what changing shapes is but. Well. I'm both, you know? Both human shaped and snake shaped, always, regardless of what my actual current physical form is. And I need, physically, to be both, every so often. Feel trapped, otherwise. Suppose that's what it's like for you too."

Lucian had no discernible pupils, but from the light glinting off them it seemed like he looked up at Crowley. He made a soft, rasping sort of noise in his throat which Crowley, again, having not been corrected the first time, assumed was agreement. He ran his hand over the flattened, lumpy brow ridge that was his forehead. The skin was rough in texture, far less traditionally pettable than a wolf. Crowley continued anyway.

"You make a lovely beast," he murmured, and Lucian nuzzled into him, making a satisfied sort of rumbling noise.

\--

As Aziraphale walked from the bus stop, he found himself worried. He shouldn't be, not really, it wasn't fair to them, there was no reason to think Crowley and Lucian had not run the bookshop properly, or, at least, improperly in the way Aziraphale liked it to be. What, after all, could go wrong? Aziraphale had a long list. Fire. Vampire attack that caused a fire. Vampire attack that caused Crowley to get hurt. Angry demons, or, worse, angry angels. It didn't bear thinking about, and yet it was all he could think about for the last few minutes of his walk.

The bookshop wasn't opened. This wasn't really a surprise. He had not specifically instructed them to come back to open today, but had hoped that they felt like they should. His fault, he supposed, for relying on a demon's ability to take responsible initiative.

There was a young woman standing outside his shop, typing furiously on her mobile telephone, occasionally looking up to glare at the sign. This seemed too strong a reaction, but then the sign did say that the shop opened at 09:30 on Wednesdays, and it was, by now, closer to half past noon.

"Is anything the matter, my dear girl?"

"Hmm? No, just trying to figure out when this stupid bookshop is actually open, so I can see if they have the single book I still need for my dissertation. Third day. Third day in a row I've got here and they've not been open when they said they would be. Trying to find their phone number now, so I can call and ask."

Aziraphale gave her a bright smile of exaggerated friendliness.

"The number is down, currently, I'm afraid, but I can let you in. What sort of book were you looking for, again?"

Her eyes widened.

"Oh! Oh god. I'm sorry!"

The woman looked terribly embarrassed, and if Aziraphale hadn't felt so righteous, he would have felt a little guilty.

"No matter. I've been out of town, and it seems my, ah, employees have been shirking their duties. What sort of book is it you needed?"

The woman, ducking her head, stuffing her telephone into the pocket of her trousers, followed him in.

"It should be be in the religion section," she said.

"Ah, right. That'll be over there," he told her, gesturing helpfully at approximately half the shop, "take your time."

She wandered over to begin to look, and he turned the sign in the door to open. The shop looked like it had been fairly well looked after, though a copy of Frankenstein lay open on the floor, half covered by a magazine. He tutted, picked them up, and went to put them in the back room for whenever they came back next.

"Oh dear!" he exclaimed, as he entered the back room, startled, understandably he felt, by the sight of the massive wolf creature on his sofa.¨

Indeed his sofa seemed to be a tad bigger than usual too. He shut the door carefully behind him, having to trust the customer wouldn't run away with his books. Wouldn't do for anyone to spot a werewolf in the shop. That would just make more people want to come here, and that was the last thing he wanted.

He put the book and magazine on the desk, and took a closer look. Crowley was sprawled out underneath the huge wolf, the large head resting in his lap. They both seemed to be asleep, Lucian's chest rising and falling evenly, Crowley's not at all. He frequently forgot to breathe while he slept, so it was just as well he didn't need to. 

Lucian's wolf shape looked, well. It looked uncomfortable. Awkwardly long limbs, shaped like he couldn't quite decided whether he wanted to be bipedal or not. All the mass seemed to be centred in the upper chest and neck, and something in the face looked pained. He didn't look like Lucian, or, by extension, Aziraphale at all, although he supposed he did look like Lucian, that this was him just as much as the human shape was. Just like all of Crowley's shapes were equally integral.

Aziraphale bent down to take off Crowley's glasses, which had slid half off at some point during the night, and looked like they might fall off any minute. And then he nearly discorporated out of his skin, seeing one large eye looking at him. Or at least, presumably it was looking at him. There was no pupil, so it was difficult to know for certain.

"Oh! Hello Lucian. Good morning. Or, well, technically, good afternoon."

The wolf blinked at him. Aziraphale gave him a bright and only a little bit nervous smile.

"Would you mind terribly being human again for a little while? Only, there's customers in the shop, you see, and I wouldn't want it to become known for werewolf sightings. The people who like that sort of thing are very intense, as I imagine you realise, and so, well."

The wolf blinked, twice, which Aziraphale chose to believe meant yes, of course, I'll shake of this canine coil at once.

"I'll just make us some tea in the meantime."

The cracking, shuddering noises coming from behind him seemed to indicate he had been mostly right. It sounded like quite the painful transformation. One particular sound, like bone breaking, made him wince in sympathy, and focus very hard on the boiling water, and measuring out just the perfect amount of tea leaves.

"Sorry," Lucian said, as Aziraphale heard the rustling sounds of fabric against skin, "we meant to open again, but we must have slept in a bit."

"It's quite all right, dear boy. I trust Crowley explained how I run this business."

"As inefficiently as you possibly can, I think was the way he phrased it."

Aziraphale beamed.

"Just so. Now, how do you take your tea?"

"Just black, thanks."

Aziraphale busied himself for a minute or two, finishing the tea, and making a cup of coffee for Crowley, which, despite being made from the cheapest tin of instant coffee Aziraphale could find, always turned out exquisite. He set it just so the smell would reach the demon, but out of reach enough that Crowley couldn't blindly grasp at it and pour it all over himself by accident. This was something Aziraphale had had long decades to perfect.

"I, ah, wanted to tank you," Lucian said, flashing Aziraphale a quick and jarringly familiar smile, "for being okay with this. With us. I realise it's not, perhaps, what you wanted, but I hope we can find a way to make it work for- for all of us. Eventually."

"Yes," replied Aziraphale, with an answering almost identical smile, "I do hope so. I do want Crowley to be happy, and if that means sharing him with you, well. That's how we'll make it work."

"Aww," Crowley said, voice hoarse with sleep, from his place on the sofa. 

"Morning, dear."

Crowley stretched, bones bending in ways most humans skeletons could not manage, and yawned, jaw unhinging briefly. He got up in one fluid motion, pulled as if by gravity towards the coffee. He all but inhaled it, and, as he set the cup down, Aziraphale saw it start to refill itself.

"Morning," Crowley said, pressing a kiss to Lucian's cheek.

"Morning," he repeated, grabbing Aziraphale's face and kissing him, deeply, nearly causing the angel to drop his tea.

Aziraphale's eyes fluttered closed for a moment, lips parted, even as Crowley pulled back.

"Love you," the demon said, winking.

"We'll be off, I think, if that's all right. But I'll stop by later tonight, if you've time?"

"Oh, err, yes, of course," Aziraphale replied, still flustered, still feeling the ghost of Crowley's lips against his own.

He barely registered as Lucian said goodbye, and the two of them walked out of the shop. He followed them, still a bit dazed. The tea helped, some, and he saw the young lady from earlier stand by the counter with a book.

"Found it," she told him with a smile.

"Oh, err, good," he said, despite himself.

"Not to be too personal, but, uh, did your employees fail to open the shop because they were, you know, sleeping with each other?"

"It rather seems so, I'm afraid. Terribly unprofessional. Have them fired at once."

The woman smiled.

"Understandable, though. Quite good looking."

She frowned, then squinted at him.

"One of them your little brother?"

"Err, yes, I suppose. 30 pounds, please."

She paid, happily, and walked out. It was ten whole minutes before Aziraphale realised he'd given her a 90% discount.


	8. Bookshop 2: Now With Crêpes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much as the title suggests, there are crêpes, of which this poor tortured writer has absolutely none.

Aziraphale and Crowley were in the bookshop. It was late. They were doing what they often did on late nights together; drinking wine, reading, and listening to the ancient gramophone play something calm and cheerful from the forties. The difference, this time, was that Crowley lay with his head in Aziraphale's lap, one leg hooked over the back of the sofa and one hanging off the seat, in what seemed to the angel to be a violently uncomfortable position.

I was only their second time together, well, their second time together alone, after Lucian had for all intents and purposes had their conversation for them. It had been a little awkward, having someone else do their declaring of love on their behalf, but, as at least Aziraphale freely admitted, it would probably have taken at least another century or two if he hadn't. So the angel couldn't feel too upset.

Aziraphale held his book open in one hand, freeing the other to run fingers through Crowley's hair. It was something he had wanted to do for a long time, but never quite dared to. Crowley's eyes fell closed, his book flopping down on his chest, and Aziraphale had to use a small miracle to keep the pages from bending out of shape. It wasn't his book, but unlike certain demons he had respect for all books, even celebrity biographies such as the one Crowley was currently reading. It was a paperback, too. Awful. Crowley claimed to have invented both concepts, and Aziraphale believed him. It had been an attempt to prove to the angel that not all books are good, but had not succeeded, despite how much it pained Aziraphale. He was a being of love, and he damned- blessedly well going to love all books, no matter how terrible and unnecessary.

"Why are you reading that nonsense at any rate?"

Crowley grinned, eyes still closed.

"I tempted her into half the mistakes of her career. Not hard work, mind, very easily swayed. But I wanna see whether she mentions the devilishly handsome man who suggested she leave her fourth husband for a woman."

Aziraphale sighed.

"And?"

"Well, I'm only on husband three so far. Bit of a bastard, but not in a good way."

"As long as you're happy, I suppose."

Crowley hummed, turning his head and pressing a kiss to Aziraphale's waistcoat which, despite the angel's inability to feel it, still made him blush. It was not a difficult feat for Crowley.

"Am happy. Really happy," Crowley murmured.

Aziraphale smiled.

"So am I, my dear."

They stayed like that for most of the night, Crowley eventually falling asleep. Aziraphale didn't sleep much. Sleeping, after all, meant less time to read. He didn't get as much reading done as he intended, however, because he frequently found himself distracted by looking down at the sleeping demon in his lap. All that frantic energy and flashy behaviour gone, just the face of a demon who had been on the Earth so very long. 

\--

Aziraphale made breakfast. It was possible, of course, that he primarily made it for himself. Just as Crowley enjoyed sleep but was fairly neutral to food, Aziraphale adored good food, but felt less strongly about sleep. The kitchen, therefore, in the flat above the bookshop, was significantly larger than the bedroom, and had a nice view from the big windows. It was well equipped, and contained several very elaborate machines intended to make cooking easier, but which Aziraphale had, for the most part, been too nervous to try. There was also a cabinet devoted entirely to different tea pots, as they, as he frequently told Crowley, really could have quite a significant effect on the outcome. Next to this, naturally, was the tea cabinet, and next to that two massive bookshelf filled with cookbooks. 

This morning, he was attempting to make crêpes. He had followed a recipe, as intuition based cooking was not his strong suit, but something about it was still a bit off. Possibly the eggs. 

As the smell of cooking started to spread through the flat, Crowley slithered in. He wasn't a snake, but he managed to walk in such a way that slithering, really, was the only appropriate descriptor. He crept up behind the angel, sneakily kissing Aziraphale's cheek and making him mess up the pancake flip. The attempted crêpe crumbled into a mess, which Crowley grabbed directly out of the pan and shoved into his mouth.

"Bit raw," he announced after swallowing the whole thing in one go.

"Well yes, it wasn't finished, dear. And you're supposed to put toppings on it, like strawberries," he said, only a pretence at irritation, gesturing at the plate of berries he had spent fifteen minutes slicing into exact thirds.

"Ah," Crowley said, and grabbed a handful of the berry slices, cramming those also into his mouth.

"They'll catch up," he said, and looked very pleased with himself.

Aziraphale sighed, and poured some batter into the pan, ready to try again.

\--

"And how do you suppose it will work?" Aziraphale asked, looking up from his tea.

Crowley shrugged.

"Not sure. Does there have to be a system?"

"I suppose not."

"It's not like a bloody child custody, is it? You want 50%, that enough? 70?"

"Oh, don't be like that, Crowley."

Crowley made a face at him, and looked away.

"It's just," he said after a while, "I don't know. Don't know how any of this works. Never really done this, you know. Not for real. Not ever."

"I know, Crowley. I know, and I don't either. It's all right."

Crowley was still for a moment, then came over to perch on the armrest of Aziraphale's chair. 

"If you're not okay with this, that's all right, you know. You can tell me."

Aziraphale leaned, his cheek brushing against Crowley's knuckles, and the hand moved to cup his face. The soft touches from the demon, it felt like it was all the angel had ever wanted or longed for.

"You do know I love you, yes? Always have. Always will. Loving someone else too doesn't change that, or diminish it."

"Do you?"

"What?"

"Love him?"

"Well, I don't know. Early days yet. Only known him what, two months. But I think I will, you know? I really do like him."

Crowley began to pull his hand back, but Aziraphale grabbed it, holding it in place with his own. The angel tried to focus on the virtue of charity, but without as much success as he would wish.

"He's practically living at your place, already."

"Yeah, well. Doesn't live in London, does he. Their headquarters are somewhere in Hungary, I think it was. Across the channel somewhere, anyway. Seemed stupid for him to stay at a hotel where he might get caught. Full of security cameras, those things. My invention, I know, but a bit inconvenient for this purpose."

"He'll go back, then."

"At some point, yeah, probably."

"And you won't follow him."

"Fuck no. Lived in London to long to live anywhere else. But it's just Europe. Not like it's far."

"And I wouldn't," he added, leaning down to kiss the top of Aziraphale's head, "leave you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've not ever been in a poly relationship, and i'm not sure I'd have the emotional fortitude and maturity for it, so, please, if something I write is wrong, or offensive, or an unfortunate stereotype, please let me know, and I will work to rectify it.  
Also, writing about strawberry crepes really makes me want strawberry crepes. Mm. Crepes. Strawberries.  
Also also. Re the concept of Lucian leaving for Hungary. I don't necessarily think I'll write that, but if I do, I have a delightful idea involving Crowley supplying Lucian with a specialised ritual to summon him.


	9. Snakes Make Perfectly Serviceable Scarves, Though, Being Cold-Blooded, More For Fashion Than For Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soft Lucian

"You doing all right? Not freezing to death?"

_Hssssss_

"Good."

They were out, walking through a park, headed towards Crowley's flat. Well, Lucian was walking. Crowley, currently, did not have any legs, and as such was unable to, and so he lay, quite small, curled between Lucian's neck and the fur collar of his coat, small head resting in the hollow of Lucian's throat. 

They had been out, with Aziraphale, to some sort of very fancy restaurant. Lucian didn't remember the name, but it was the sort of place which Aziraphale adored, and which was far too refined and artistic for his own taste. Spending his life first as a slave, later in hiding, he had never developed a particularly refined palate. But it had been fine. It had been fun. It was strange, seeing Aziraphale and Crowley interact, so many in jokes and references and shared moments throughout history. It made Lucian feel a little left out, but he was the one headed to Crowley's bed, and so he could not find it in himself to resent the angel. Besides, pining after each other like idiots for millennia, they deserved to be as infuriatingly in love as they wanted to be.

_Hsssssss_

"Yes, a bit. I'll resist, though. Been at it since 1207, I have _some_ experience."

The moon, as Crowley had pointed out, was shining down on them, full and bright. While Lucian could, of course, transform without the moon's position influencing him, under the full moon remaining human took some effort. Not much, not any more, but enough that he had to keep it in mind. To allocate some fragment of his brain to be on watch and actively resist the change.

Crowley hissed again, this time wordlessly, and curled tighter around Lucian's throat, almost to the point of discomfort. Lucian stroked careful fingers over the small head, smooth scales cool against his skin.

"Maybe you would freeze less if you at least pretended to be warm blooded?"

Crowley huffed, barely perceptible, making it clear how nonsensical this suggestion was. It was not a cold night, not to Lucian, but autumn was beginning to announce its arrival. Of course, lycans usually ran hotter than the standard human, something Crowley had informed him was an excellent choice.

_Hsssss_

"No, I can't just grow fur specifically where you're laying. Doesn't work like that. With the exception of eyes and teeth it's rather an all or nothing situation."

_Hssss_

"Well, so are snakes. Cold blooded, who thought of that? Poor design."

Crowley hissed sulkily, and remained silent for the rest of their walk, which had to useful side effect of making strangers look weirdly at Lucian significantly less. He'd walked with his mobile in his hand, ready to hold it out as an explanation, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself than needed.

When they got to Crowley's building the locks popped open on their own, thanks to a helpful flick of Crowley's tail, responsibly locking themselves again after. As they got into Crowley's flat, the snake slithered down into Lucian's shirt, curling tightly around his stomach.

"It's not even cold in here," Lucian argued, "you've got a heat lamp over your bed. You'll be fine."

_Warm_ Crowley hissed.

Lucian slid his coat off, and unbuttoned his shirt enough that he was able to pull Crowley out, hold him up, and look him as sternly in the eyes as he could. Having, he hoped, gotten his message across, he lifted Crowley's head up so he could press a soft kiss above the snake's eyes, and deposited him on the bed.

Crowley's flat had been almost entirely non functional only a few months prior. Not even the water had been connected, although whenever Crowley had to water his plants the mister had, somehow, filled itself since the last time. Luckily the demon had, since Lucian had been staying there, made some more permanent improvements. Lucian, after all, despite his inability to age, and his skill at regenerating tissue with supernatural speed, still had roughly the same needs as mortals. So now, the bathroom was functional, although the shower only had one temperature. It was, however, the exact temperature Lucian preferred, so that was fine. The fridge was on, and contained food and not just three wine bottles. The water was connected, and the electricity functioned even without Crowley needing to be in the flat and by his mere presence threatening it into being on. 

The coffee maker, however. It did not cooperate. Crowley, when using it, just placed a cup there, which immediately filled itself with perfect coffee. Lucian, however, had no such luck. He had to boil water on the stove, mixing it with instant coffee by hand, as if it were still 1225. Atrocious.

He carried the two steaming mugs back into the bedroom, where Crowley was laying, now human, stretched out under the heat lamp, sunglasses on against the warm light. He rose, however, at the smell of coffee, grabbing a cup before flattening himself as much as possible while still able to drink. Lucian joined him. The heat lamp made it significantly warmer than he preferred, but watching Crowley bask was quite enjoyable, so he tolerated it.

"Was it all right?"

"Hmm?"

"Being all three of us. Aziraphale too. Didn't get, you know, too weird?"

Lucian leaned over the kiss the closest available part of Crowley (his right shoulder).

"Only a little."

Crowley hummed thoughtfully, brows knitting into a frown above his sunglasses.

"Don't," he admitted, "have terribly much experience with your actual proper romantic relationship."

Lucian's eyebrows rose.

"You're older than the Earth. Surely you must have gotten around?"

Crowley shrugged, staring firmly down into his now nearly empty mug.

"Fooled around with humans, yeah. Had what they might've interpreted as a relationship, but it never was for me. I mean, they're like mayflies, yes? Such brief lifespans. You ever been in a relationship with a human?"

Lucian shook his head.

"Well, see that's the thing, right. You lot have got each other. Your own species. You can even make more. Accidentally fall in love with a human, just chew on them a bit, and boom, new immortal wolf mate. On Earth, there's just me. And the angel, of course, but you know. Not. Well. Yeah."

Lucian knew.

"I can understand that. Weird. Never thought I would be the more experienced one in a relationship with someone eight times my age."

"Ah, that's just this body. Old as Creation, me. Older, even. Be glad I don't age."

"I think we'd be even. After eight centuries I'd be a bit wrinkly too."

Crowley shuddered.

"Stay immortal," he advised.

They were quiet, for a time, Lucian attempting to grasp the concept of of existing before the universe, and beginning to give himself a headache in the process.

"You had many, then? Many long time immortal lovers through the centuries?"

Lucian looked up into the heat lamp until his eyes watered.

"I... I had a wife. A long time ago."

"Another werewolf?"

"Vampire."

"Though the vampires were your slave owners?"

Lucian nodded.

"Oh. Complicated, then."

"Very."

"What happened?"

Lucian ran a hand through his hair, debating with himself whether he really wanted to talk about this. Perhaps it was time. His hand gravitated to the amulet around his neck, running his fingers over the engraved patterns.

"She was born just a few years after me. Daughter of the vampire lord, my... tormentor. Although it took me years to realise it. Not her, with the tormenting, her father. So we always knew each other. I was the first of my race, the vampires favourite _pet_."

One of Crowley's hands came to rest on Lucian's thigh, silent encouragement and sympathy.

"So we were always aware of each other. She was stunning. You would have liked her. Wildly disobedient, dedicated to doing what was right rather than what she was told. A fierce warrior, far more than I have ever been. Great swordswoman. As impressive a lover as a fighter."

He smiled at the memory of her, though it felt like a fist was crushing his heart. It had been centuries, of course, and he thought of her less often than he used to, but the pain when he did had not diminished much.

"You remember I told you about the rebellion, the start of the war? Well, rebellion would've happened either way, eventually. She actually asked me not to run away."

Crowley started to say something, but then seemed to think better of it, merely leaning closer into him, resting his head on Lucian's shoulder.

"But the war. I don't know whether the centuries long war would have happened if not... See, she helped me escape, but someone had found out about us. Told her father. Took her. So I had to. Had to break back in. We had intended to just leave in the night, but not enough of us got out. So. Well, anyway. Her father eventually found out she was carrying my child. A hybrid. Both lycan and vampire. So he killed her, his own daughter. Chained me up so I had to watch the sun- so I had to watch her die."

Tears were running down his cheeks, now. He squeezed his eyes shut, and all he could see was her body on fire, the ashen shape of her after. Then arms were around him, thin lips kissing away his tears. Crowley pulled him into a hug, resting his chin on Lucian's head, letting him have the moment. Lucian was grateful.

"So," he finished, voice muffled by Crowley's shirt, "not- not a great-"

He gave up.

"No rush," Crowley soothed.

"Not much experience with happy endings," he managed, some minutes later, having calmed his breathing.

"We had over a century together but. Just in secret. Meeting on the tops of towers, close to dawn. In the tunnels and dungeons under the castle. Always hidden."

"Ah. Know something about that," Crowley murmured.

"This was hers. Last thing remaining of her. Had to grab it off her- her body."

His thumb rubbed the smooth stone set in the centre of his amulet.

"I'm sorry. Sorry. Was six hundred years ago. I know I should-"

"No," Crowley told him firmly, "You're feeling what you're supposed to feel. Don't apologize for that."

So Lucian stopped. Just focused on breathing, and the smell of Crowley, and how his fingers felt running through Lucian's hair. Eventually, he dozed off, for a little while. 

When his eyes blinked open again, Crowley's fingers were still in his hair, the demon's other arm still around him. And he felt a surge of warmth and appreciation for this demon, who clearly had no idea how to be a being of evil incarnate. He made a happy noise in his throat, a feeble human version of his wolf form's attempt at a purr.

"Thank you," he murmured into Crowley's chest.

"There's not... Not really been anyone else. Not romantically. Raze closest, maybe. 'S my second in command. But that's more of a pack-mates with benefits sort of thing. But other than that. Just you and her. Just you two with any... Any _feelings_."

"Honoured to be in the same category," Crowley said, and kissed the top of his head again.

"Hoping to stay," he added.

"Hoping you do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a chapter I planned exclusively with the goal of letting me naturally use the phrase pack-mates with benefits, this turned out rather sad.


	10. Unwanted Guests

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Occult forces attempt to sabotage good, pure and wholesome activities.

"Ye- Yes, please, keep going-"

Lucian groaned, feeling Crowley clench around him, and dug his fingertips, if possible, even harder into the demon's hips. His other hand was curled around Crowley's cock, pumping in an uneven rhythm, not matching the one of his hips, nor Crowley's. Still, the demon's loud moans seemed to indicate that he was enjoying himself. Lucian, in an ambitious yet doomed attempt at multitasking leaned in to kiss up the side of Crowley's throat to his jaw, but mostly succeeded banging their heads together uncomfortably.

"Ow," Crowley said, "hold on."

He eased himself off Lucian's cock, and pushed the lycan down onto the bed, on his back, reclining with his back against the headboard. He leaned in, and kissed Lucian, deep, hands in his hair. Their hardnesses brushed against each other, causing Lucian to whine with need.

"Don't be impatient," Crowley murmured into his mouth, spending a full minute just kissing him, deliberately avoiding all other touches, despite Lucian's impassioned pleas.

Lucian grabbed his hips, pulling him closer, and Crowley relented, positioning himself, and then sinking down on Lucian's cock again, eyes squeezed shut. He began a slow rhythm, too slow, Lucian thought, but did nothing other than to thrust up, meeting him, as best as this position allowed. Besides, getting to look at Crowley like this, while inside him, it was not an experience he wanted to rush through.

The demon's hair was mussed, standing up at weird angles where Lucian had run his hands through it as they kissed. His eyes, a full snake yellow, were shut tightly, a concentrated frown on his face, a flush in his cheeks. Lucian could see his muscles straining. He took Crowley's cock in his hand again, letting the demon's rhythm guide him. Crowley rose and fell, gradually more erratically until he came, clenching tight around Lucian, sending him over the edge too.

The demon collapsed onto Lucian in a heap of limbs, head resting on his chest, breathing hard. He mumbled something unintelligible into his chest, and Lucian agreed. It had been good. It had, in fact, been-

** _Dong-ding_ **

"You- _fuck!_ You expecting someone?"

"No," Crowley replied, just as breathless.

Lucian sniffed the air.

"Not Aziraphale," he concluded.

Crowley did the same, with his human nose, then flicked a forked tongue out to taste the air.

"Shit," he said, "fuck."

Crowley extricated himself from the lycan's hands, and also the sheets, diving for the discarded pile of clothing on the floor. 

"What's going on?" Lucian asked, as he watched Crowley fiddle with the buttons of his shirt for a solid half minute before remembering he could dress with the snap of a finger, and doing so.

"Had a meeting," Crowley said, looking at Lucian, frowning, and miracling his clothes back on, too.

"With some of the people from Down There. Just reporting on progress, and such. But it, uh, it was two hours ago. And this is them. Which is bad news."

"Would you like me to rip them to shreds?" Lucian offered, although more as a joke than anything else. 

Crowley, though, seemed too distracted to notice.

"Not completely off the table," he muttered, running his fingers through his hair in an attempt to tame it back into the cool faux bedhead look, as opposed to the real and very messy bedhead look it currently had.

"Stay here," he told Lucian, quite sternly.

Lucian was quite happy to obey, given that he, as they both knew, had good enough hearing to catch the whole conversation from the bedroom. He heard the front door open.

"Hastur," Crowley said, feigning surprise and innocence, "Ligur, guys, nice to see you. What brings you here?"

Lucian nudged the door open, just a hint, just so he could see the demons. He was curious, after all, about what Crowley's fallen fellows looked like. 

The answer was, surprisingly, absolutely awful. Not that their human vessels seemed particularly ugly, exactly, just like someone had dragged them through a muddy field, followed by dipping them in soot, tearing at their clothes and dipping them in the amphibian and reptile area of London Zoo just as a sort of garnish. One was tallish, thin, and white, with whiter hair, in which rested a large frog, as well as half a dozen leaves and sticks. The other was slightly less tall, slightly less thin, black with blacker hair, and had a chameleon on his head, the colour of which matched his eyes.

"Ligur and I were expecting you hours ago," the one who, by process of elimination, must be Hastur, said.

"Yeah, my bad, lost track of time a bit," Crowley told them, and Lucian could hear the nervous grin on his voice.

Ligur sniffed.

"Smells like sin in here."

"I should hope so," Crowley replied, "we are demons after all."

Hastur made a face of disgust, although it could be he had just caught a glance of himself in the hallway mirror. 

"No," Ligur continued, "something else. You got someone in here?"

"Nah, just, you know-" Crowley began, but Ligur snapped his fingers, and Lucian found himself standing, rather suddenly, next to Crowley, and feeling slightly nauseous.

"Not, uh, someone you'd know, I meant to say," Crowley lied, poorly.

Hastur, eyes big and black, squinted at Lucian. So, somehow, did the frog on his head. Lucian felt deeply uncomfortable.

"Why have you got a human here?" Hastur asked.

Lucian saw several stages of panic cross Crowley's face.

"Uh, for, uh, sex. Yup. Sex. Corrupting humanity and all. Sowing, if you will, the devil's seed."

He grinned, and it was the other demons' turn to look deeply uncomfortable.

"Yes," Lucian added, innocently, "that's all I'm for. Who are you? Anthony's colleagues?"

"That's revolting," Hastur said, "debasing yourself with one of them. Well done."

"Hold on," Ligur said, frowning.

"This one's not human. Smells wrong. Like... Dunno. Something bad."

"Not bad," he went on, "in our way. But-"

He faltered, looking to Hastur, who stared blankly back at him.

"Oh," said Crowley, "yeah. Werewolf, actually. Did you know there were werewolves? I didn't and I've been up here since the start. Marvellous what these humans think of, eh?"

"Ah," the demons said, in unison, though from their faces it looked as if it didn't clarify much.

"What is a were wolf?" Hastur asked.

"Oh," Crowley said, putting a hand on Lucian's shoulder, "_darling_, why don't you show them?"

"But," Lucian argued, looking down at himself, then up at Crowley again, and then at the demons.

"Don't worry, I'll fix them later," Crowley muttered, attempting to move his mouth as little as possible, though the pretence was rather half hearted, given the two demons were standing less than a metre away.

"All right," Lucian said, shrugging, and letting the wolf take hold of him.

It was just a day past the full moon, and so it took little effort, letting his teeth turn into fangs, hands into claw, feet into paws. He made the transformation as quick as he could, less than half a minute, he counted, and snarled into the demons' faces. The chameleon in Ligur's hair just blinked at him.

"So," Ligur said, "it's like a human that turns into a hellhound? Seems impractical."

"Zdfzgnjkr," Crowley said, "gfjn. Yeah. Bit like that, yeah."

"In that case," Ligur said, and snapped his fingers.

And the world stopped. Sound, usually exceptionally clear with his wolf ears, sank back into the background, until all he could hear was the beating of his own heart, worryingly slow. Or at least it would be worrying him, if the same sort of process hadn't also been happening to his mind. His thoughts felt like syrup, or something less sweet but equally viscous. His eyes, though they didn't close, drifted out of focus until all he could perceive were vague blobs of colour, light and dark, faint movements, slowed.

Lucian could only partly feel his body, the numbness consuming all his senses. He was only dimly aware of time passing, in the background. The blobby shapes moving slow, like insects trapped in hardening amber, until eventually only one remained. 

"Hey," a voice said, clear through the sludge of his brain.

A sharp noise, like a snap. He blinked dry eyes, and shook his head.

"You doing okay?"

He let out a muffled bark of a sound.

"You should snap right out of it, I think, but maybe Ligur overdid it on account of the whole werewolf thing. Here, let me see your face," the voice continued.

It sounded rather like Crowley's voice, and hands that felt familiar gripped his muzzle carefully, guiding his eyes down to a pale pink and dark red blob, in the centre of which were two black dots. Eventually the blobs resolved themselves into Crowley's face, and sound began to play, as it were, at normal speed.

"Hey, there you are. Sorry about that," Crowley said softly, pulling Lucian's face down enough to be able to place a kiss on top of the lycan's muzzle.

Regaining control of his limbs rather suddenly, Lucian flopped forwards, pinning Crowley against the wall with his dead weight.

"Oof," Crowley said, but put his arms around Lucian's neck, fingers in the ragged fur there.

Slowly, far more slowly than the other way around had been, the aspects of the wolf fell away. Fur fell off, disappearing into nothing before it hit the floor. His body shrunk, compacting in on itself, and his head changed shape, becoming flatter, teeth shrinking and becoming blunt, until all that remained to show he was not human were his pale blue star shot eyes.

He was still leaning into Crowley, though more manageably so, now, careful hands brushing over the soft human skin of his neck and shoulders. He let his head sink onto Crowley's shoulder.

"Whuhwuzza," he said, struggling a little bit still with fine motor skills.

"What," he said a moment later and with a great deal more concentration, "was that?"

"Here, come sit," Crowley said, guiding him to the sofa, and miracling up a blanket and a cup of tea, clearly having been influenced by Aziraphale.

Lucian accepted, settling under the blanket, sipping the tea and concluding that, evidently, the concept of tea was all the demon had learned from the angel, as it tasted mostly like warm water that had once looked at a sachet of earl grey and promptly decided that that was too spicy a flavour profile. But it was warm and it was a nice gesture, so he didn't point this out.

"Those were," Crowley said, with distaste, "my lovely colleagues."

"Yeah, was there for that part. But what did they do to me?"

Crowley looked away.

"Bit of a demon trick. Or occult trick, anyway. Not stopping time as much as... Stopping perception of time, sort of? Like they just slow down everything going on in there," he gestured to Lucian's head, "for a while. Mostly so humans won't overhear us talking about, you know, demonic business. I would've undone it, but they would have gotten suspicious. Not meant to care, you know. Better to let them think you're just a random temptation gone a bit far."

"It's all right," Lucian said, then frowned.

"Did it go, I don't know, all right? Like it was supposed to?"

"Yeah, fine. Yelled at me a bit about paperwork, told me I'm rubbish at everything, a disgrace to demonkind. Usual."

Lucian thought for a moment.

"Because it's Hell, is you being a disgrace a good thing?"

"Uh, no, not this time. I have been slacking a bit, lately, to be fair. They usually never check up, though, so it's not my fault. Can't expect a demon to be diligent and dutiful if you don't check up, not my fault."

"That does sound reasonable," Lucian agreed, still struggling a little.

While he had accepted that something called Heaven and Hell must exist, and that Aziraphale and Crowley were an angel and a demon, it hadn't really sunk in that it was all really _real_ until now. Until seeing other demons. But he could have that existential breakdown tonight. Right now he had questions, very important questions.

"Why did they have animals on their heads?"

"Oh," Crowley said, flopping down next to him on the sofa, laying an arm across Lucian's shoulders, fingers rubbing distractedly over skin, "all demon's have a sort of... Animal aspect, you might call it. Like me. Serpent. Ligur's got a chameleon and Hastur a frog. Beelzebub's got flies. Uh, Dagon's a bit vaguer, but I think it's fishy. Like bit razor teethed eels or something."

"Dagon? Like the Lovecraftian deity? Shit, is that real too?"

"What?"

Crowley's face did its best to look like a question mark.

"Oh. No, nope. That crazy bastard named the fishy god after the demon. Hardly the other way around."

"Oh," Lucian said, attempting to hide his genuine relief, "of course, no, yeah. Obviously."

Crowley leaned over to kiss Lucian's cheek, briefly, but Lucian, clever, having gotten his reflexes and instincts back, turned his head to intercept Crowley's lips with his own.

"Mmf," Crowley said, in surprise, but didn't pull back.

"So," Lucian continued, enjoying the faint blush on Crowley's face, "why haven't you got a snake on your head?"

"I, uh, do," Crowley said, tapping the tattoo beneath his sideburn.

"That's a tattoo," Lucian pointed out.

"Yes," Crowley agreed.

"It's not an actual snake."

"No. What do you want me to do, go around looking like Medusa?"

"I, uh. Could you?"

In response to this, Crowley's hair grew long, down far past his shoulders, in thick chunks, almost like dreads, only they solidified and grew scales, and then, worse, grew little heads, minuscule eyes opening and staring horribly at Lucian.

"Jesus Christ."

"Ow, hey!"

"Sorry. Lucifer Satan? That's... mildly horrifying."

Crowley pouted, and some of the myriad of snake heads scowled at Lucian. He reached a careful finger out to one of them, and it licked him.

"So you.. You control all of them? Their tiny little brains?"

"Yeah, course. Who else would?"

"Fair. But, do you... I mean. Can you see through their eyes?"

Some of the tiny eyes blinked.

"Yup. Bit of a headache, to be honest. Bright side is I can see you very three dimensionally. Great for your depth perception, this."

"Huh," Lucian said.

Crowley frowned in concentration, and three of the snakes began twining around each other, forming a lumpy braid.

"See," Crowley said, "they even do tricks."

"Yes," Lucian said, "very impressive. Can you put them away, please?"

"Aww," Crowley said, but the snakes grew limp, eyes closing over, their body losing definition until they were just lose waves of hair.

Crowley let his hair stay long, though. Lucian reached out to touch it, just to make sure. It was soft, innocent, didn't move at all, and, wanting to be thorough, he ran his fingers through it.

"Prefer it like this. Sorry. Too many eyes."

"Ah, fair enough," Crowley said.

"Like it long, though. Looks good on you."

"Yes," Crowley agreed, "thanks. And listen, sorry about the visit. I'd just gotten caught up in, well..."

"Me?"

"Yeah. Can't feel too sorry for that."

"That's fair. Maybe miracle me to the bookshop or something if something like it happens again."

"Yeah. Yeah. Good plan. I'll warn Aziraphale of the possibility."

They sat in silence for a while, as Lucian finished his now lukewarm "tea".

"Hey, want to get back to what we were doing before?" Crowley asked, slowly dragging the blanket off of the still naked Lucian.

"Hmm. Don't see why no-" Lucian said, but was interrupted by Crowley pulling the blanket the rest of the way off, and settling in his lap, hands in Lucian's hair.

It was, after that, a fairly good night, and Crowley utterly distracted Lucian from his plan to have an existential crisis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thx to hurtslikeyourmouth for helping prompt this chapter and also being nice.  
Also, I spent like an hour drawing Medusa Crowley, please go look at it here on my tumblr: https://indiasierrabravo.tumblr.com/post/187242055552/hello-here-is-a-joke-i-spent-like-an-hour-drawing  
  
Sorry, tried to embed, but it's not working.  
I am starting, though, to run out of ideas in my quest to postpone writing the two smut chapter's i've planned because my social anxiety bleeds into my writing and no one acts like a person and it's all just very awkward, and. Well. Anyway. If anyone has any prompts or ideas they'd like to see in this fic, please let me know below. Unless they're more smut prompts. Leave those for other writers more likely to be competent and willing smut writers.


	11. Corporeal Blasphemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley attempts to, well, tempt his angel. And like, super succeeds. Aziraphale is very temptable. And tempting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I looked at a lot of very nice femme Aziraphale/femme Crowley art today, which in part inspired this chapter. While I perhaps headcanon Aziraphale as agender, as opposed to Crowley's gender fluidity, I still chose to change the pronouns according to physical appearance. As a person whose relationship with gender is of the ugh, why, do i have to variety, I hope this works for people? I don't know. Gender is both complicated and not real.

"So he's gone, then? Back to Europe?"

Aziraphale managed to keep almost all traces of emotion out of his voice, though not out of his eyes. This was fine, though, as Crowley's face was currently hidden behind the magazine he was reading, which claimed to be news but was, in reality, about which celebrity was dating whom, and how they had gotten absolutely off their heads on whatever new drug was "cool". Aziraphale had stopped paying attention back when cocaine was considered medicinal.

"Yeah," Crowley said, flipping the magazine down so Aziraphale could see a hint of a disappointed smile, "but just for a month or two, he says, just to organise some stuff for his, uh, pack. Gang. People? Fellow wolves."

"Will you miss him?"

Crowley made a motion that managed, somehow, to be neither a shrug nor a nod, but something exactly in the middle. Snake bones, Aziraphale thought. Tricky things.

"Bit, yeah. Flat feels lonely, now, it's weird. Gotten used to having the puppy there."

Aziraphale frowned.

"Cause he's a wolf, get it?"

"No, no I understand, it just sounds a little... demeaning."

Crowley grimaced.

"Same as calling a human lover baby, though, isn't it? And humans do that all the time. He hasn't complained, anyway."

"Perhaps he worries he will go to Hell when he dies if he does."

Crowley made another face at him.

"Should hope he does so I can see him. Anyway, he's not going to die because he's immortal. Not dying's a major perk, I've heard."

Aziraphale opened his mouth to argue with the demon, shook his head, and closed his mouth again. After all, Heaven wasn't necessarily a place he wanted to go back to, either, so he supposed he couldn't blame Crowley. Indeed, Aziraphale could not imagine loving, truly, romantically, biblically, loving a human and having to watch them end up in either place. Crowley disappeared back behind his magazine again, and they read in silence for a moment before the demon spoke again.

"Mind if I stay here for a while?"

"Oh, yes, for as long as you want, you know I don't sleep."

"I meant..."

The magazine lowered again, revealing a slightly worried looking Crowley.

"For a few weeks, maybe?"

Something in his voice was wavering, and it made Aziraphale's heart do a funny clenching sort of motion he didn't quite understand, and wasn't inclined to investigate. But he smiled warmly, brightly, as he usually did when Crowley for once asked for something he was able to give.

"Of course," he told him, "in fact, come over here, right now, would you?"

Crowley rose in a fluid motion, like a snake rising, preparing to strike, only he followed it up by putting his magazine down and downing the rest of his tea, which rather softened the image. He settled on the arm of Aziraphale's chair.

"Yes, Angel?"

Aziraphale carefully placed a bookmark just so in his book, and closed it, putting it on the side-table on the other side before looking up at Crowley, and reaching a hand up to pull him down into a kiss. He tried to pretend to be surprised, but apparently Aziraphale had not quite hidden his intentions well enough. Crowley shifted, sliding down to land sprawled across Aziraphale's lap, legs hanging off the side of the chair. He cupped Aziraphale's face in his hands.

"I love you," he said, eyebrows raised, eyes big and sincere, and had Aziraphale not been sitting pressed into the chair so, he was flustered enough that his wings would have popped out. 

Which would have been unfortunate, as they were in the front part of the shop, which was still open, if currently empty of everyone but the two of them.

"I love you too," Aziraphale admitted, murmuring it into Crowley's ear.

He was half convinced the Heavenly armies, or at least Gabriel and his comrades, would come down to smite him for saying so, which was a part of the reason he never had. He had loved Crowley from very early on, he thought. As a friend and adversary. Later as more. Over fifty years, now, as more. Ever since that night in the ruins of the church, Crowley walking on consecrated ground, burning his feet to save him, and yet still thinking to save his books. He really was not all that good at being evil. A bit, perhaps, like Aziraphale was, as he very rarely admitted to himself, not that good, really, at being an angel.

"Angel, you all right?"

Crowley was looking up at him with those huge yellow eyes, and there were no Heavenly armies in sight. Yet.

"Yes, love. Yes. It's just. I waited a long time to tell you that. And.. And it's frightening. Loving you is a little frightening."

"Good frightening? Like a roller coaster?"

Aziraphale made a face.

"You know I hate those dreadful inventions. Death traps, they are, the lot of them. No. No, it's more like... You know how very very rich people sometimes like to keep very dangerous exotic pets?"

"Am I your pet?"

"Of course not. And I love you, I do, but that doesn't keep me from being afraid of the consequences of doing so, even though I know you would never do anything to harm me, at least intentionally."

Crowley frowned.

"When have I ever harmed you _un_intentionally, then?"

"Remember when you tried to make dinner in the eighties? The 1680s, I mean, of course, and you didn't know which mushrooms were safe, and I nearly got discorporated and had to stay in bed for two weeks?"

"Ah," Crowley said, "yes, all right, that was, indeed, my bad, I'll admit that. But in my defence they all looked the same."

"That's why I gave you the book!"

"I don't read books!"

"Honestly, Crowley, you seduced mankind into falling by offering them knowledge. You like books, you do. You just don't like reading them."

Crowley made an unintelligible noise.

"Fine," muttered.

"I like you reading to me," he added, more quietly, not looking into Aziraphale's eyes.

And somehow those words felt, to Aziraphale, like a wave of warmth. A rush of love, seeping out through the cracks in the demon's cool, slick, hard exterior. So he put his arms around the demon, pulling him into as tight an embrace he could manage, with only mild muffled protests from Crowley.

"Love, you only need to ask, I shall always be very happy to read for you. But not that magazine. And absolutely no celebrity autobiographies."

"Aww," Crowley pouted, "not even Caesar's?"

Aziraphale looked down at him, attempting to let his puzzlement show on his face. 

"Caesar is hardly a celebrity, is he?"

"He absolutely was when I met him," Crowley insisted.

"Right, yes, but-"

"Essentially the same thing!"

"It's not. He was a- a leader, a warrior and writer. He did important things! Not, admittedly, good ones, but still. Important, in the great scheme of things."

"Right, okay, but what's the difference between me reading a biography of Freddie Mercury and one of Caravaggio, then? They're both artists, yes?"

Aziraphale had no real argument for this.

"But why would you? You knew them both, didn't you?"

"Yeah. That's what makes reading how wrong people are fun. Same reason you've got all those wrong bibles."

Aziraphale sighed, and rested his hand on Crowley's shoulder, in a way that might be interpreted as disappointed, but was primarily an excuse to be touching the demon more. He had, after all, waited very long to do so. Like this, so freely, without worrying what Crowley thought, what others thought.

"You know perfectly well that all bibles are wrong. They're written, after all, by humanity, who are nothing if not fallible. And mostly long after the fact. And by committee." 

"Course, yeah, course," said Crowley, though Aziraphale strongly suspected he hadn't opened one for at least half a millennia.

"Do you-"

"No! No. Please don't read the bible to me, Angel. Might spontaneously combust. Or discorporate from boredom. I'll go as far as letting you read me Ulysses, but the fucking bible, no chance. Well. Possibly Revelations, that might be relevant just to be prepared, but other than that? Absolutely not."

Aziraphale, who had of course been joking, smiled indulgently at the near panicked look in Crowley's eyes, and leaned forward to plant a kiss on his forehead.

"All right, then. No bible studies, I promise."

"Thanks," Crowley said, and leaned up to kiss his cheek, and then, for good measure, his mouth.

\--

The bookshop remained blissfully empty of customers the rest of that afternoon, and when Aziraphale felt he was ready to close, at seventeen and a half past five, there was no one to shoo out other than the ambitious sparrow who had snuck in while they had the door open to let in some fresh air, and who had found the plates left over from lunch, and was found happily munching its way through the croissant crumbs until Crowley shifted to his snake form to scare it off.

"Come to bed, Angel?" Crowley asked, after they had finished their dinner.

Or rather, Aziraphale had finished most of it, while Crowley nibbled on bites of it, enjoying the sharp flavours, but not feeling the need to extend the experience. He had, however, been extendedly enjoying rather more than half of a very nice bottle of wine. It had not arrived with the takeaway, and according to Aziraphale did not go with the food at all, and so, listening for once, Crowley had chosen to have just the wine, if that was the way it was going to be, thank you very much.

"Already? It's only eight. Are you sleepy already? I think you must have spent too much time around Lucian, my dear, you didn't used to-"

"Who said," Crowley said, coming over to Aziraphale, leaning in close, fingers beginning to undo his bow-tie as he whispered into the angel's ear, "anything about sleeping?"

"Oh! Oh. _Oh_!"

The angel's face made a fascinating journey through confusion, realisation, excitement, embarrassment and ending up back at excitement, accompanied by a blush that suited him very well indeed, Crowley thought. He took the angel's hand, leading him along, his own body subtly shifting, changing, as they ascended the stairs together. Not becoming, as it were, more serpentine, though his movements arguably were, but less male than it usually was. Aziraphale seemed not to notice. Or not enough to comment, at any rate. But then, the angel had seen every version of Crowley, and knew and accepted them all. Perhaps, Crowley thought, he might one day also love them all. The demon was not aware, although the angel would soon rectify this, that he had loved every possible iteration of Crowley for a very long time indeed.

Aziraphale's bedroom was small and underused, and one wall was taken up entirely with bookshelves full to bursting. There was one window, tilted up to the sky, which Crowley suspected him of using a miracle to keep clean and free of bird droppings. The bed, though, was large and inviting. There were cushions strewn across it, as Aziraphale mostly used it to read, and they were all, of course, rather frilly and old fashioned. But Crowley would power through. She would manage to find Aziraphale sexy even though he had the interior décor taste of an eighty year old woman in 1932. She had to. Perhaps she could miracle the cushions more modern without the angel realising. 

She fumbled with the buttons of her shirt for a moment, until Aziraphale's fingers joined hers, helping, until she was able to slide the shirt off her shoulders, and the look of enraptured attention on the angel's face nearly made her spontaneously combust in a way listening to the bible probably wouldn't. 

"Oh, my love," Aziraphale said, taking her face in his hands, "you are divi- Err. Not that, perhaps. But you are perfect. All the ways you are, are beautiful and perfect to me. You know that, I hope."

And Crowley had to concentrate on not turning into a snake for the sheer amount of emotion currently making her heart do cartwheels. Her heart was not practised at cartwheels, however, so she tried to solve this problem by kissing her angel, hard, teeth clacking against each other, lips nearly bruising, hands everywhere.

"You also good," Crowley managed, breathing hard, not because she needed to, exactly, but it felt like the thing to be doing.

She unbuttoned her trousers and slid them down, standing naked before Aziraphale, having taken the time, earlier, to manifest some of the required anatomical equipment for the activities she was hoping to tempt the angel into.

"Oh," Aziraphale said, evidently noticing this.

"Would you, err, want me to...?"

He let the question hang, unfinished, in the air between them.

"To match, perhaps? At least for today?" Crowley asked, letting her hands rest on Aziraphale's still, absurdly, cloth covered shoulders.

"Oh. Yes, all right. Hold on. It's been a while."

"Yes," Crowley agreed, smirking, perhaps, just a little, "posing for that painter, yes? I saw that, once, in the Louvre, I think. Was there to tempt a kid into drawing on the Mona Lisa- No, shut up, I'm trying to tell you, I saw that painting of you, and I got too distracted to go through with it. Just stood there, permanent marker in hand, staring at that picture for half an hour, till a guard noticed the pen and very rudely escorted me out. Didn't believe me when I said I knew the model. Also I didn't have a ticket. That might not have helped."

While she talked the shape of the angel had shifted some, beneath her clothes. Soft curves appearing, flesh stretching the top of her waistcoat in a way that would have been sexy if it didn't also look a little silly. Aziraphale, being less practised at and enthusiastic about gender, hadn't gotten into the habit of adjusting the clothing along with the corporeal form.

"Let me help you with that," Crowley said, kissing Aziraphale's cheek, and slowly unbuttoning first the waistcoat, then the shirt.

Aziraphale's female form was just as soft and lovely as the male form. Pale flushed skin, curved, like an angel in a baroque painting, fittingly. Aziraphale removed her trousers rather less elegantly. They weren't made with hips in mind, and had rather protested at their sudden appearance. Crowley made sure to lean down and kiss the red lines that had appeared on the angel's skin, just to remind them who was boss.

"You, however, do look divine, in the best possible sense," she said, "in the way no one else in Heaven ever could manage. You're so beautiful, always. Fuck, Angel, I love you."

"Yes," Aziraphale said, smiling that scrunched up little smile she smiled when she though she was being clever, "that's rather the plan, isn't it?"

"You're awful, I regret my decision already," Crowley informed her, and kissed her, pulling her close, her arm fitting around her waist so naturally, like it was meant to be.

Crowley pulled Aziraphale down, onto the bed, and they lay, together, entwined, lips still locked, hands in hair, on breasts, thumbs brushing over nipples, fingers wandering down, down- Crowley found the soft curls between Aziraphale's legs, enjoying the way Aziraphale moaned into her mouth as her fingers brushed her clit. She pulled back, leaving kisses down the angel's neck, across her collar bones. She licked across her nipples, pinching them between the twin tips of her tongue, which, judging by Aziraphale's face and the noises she was making, the angel enjoyed immensely.

"You tried this way before, Angel?"

"Ah, yes, a few times. But it's been, oh goodness, at least two centuries, now. You'll have to, if you don't mind, refresh my memory."

"My pleasure," Crowley said, licking her lips, and, after a moment added, "and, uh, hopefully yours too."

She slithered down the bed, leaving kisses in her wake, until she found herself between Aziraphale's legs, pressing kisses to the insides of her thighs, which were, go- Sa- _Someone_, so soft. The angel's hands were in her hair, gently suggesting that she, perhaps, made her way to, as it were, the main course. She obliged. She licked and sucked at her clit, eliciting some truly beautiful noises from the angel, like angelic choirs might sound if they weren't awful, she thought. She licked into her, tongue extending beyond what normal human tongues usually could, making Aziraphale squirm, her nails digging into Crowley's scalp. She rubbed across the angel's clit with her fingers, attempting but not quite succeeding to find a unified rhythm. But Aziraphale didn't seem to mind, hot and wet and clenching around Crowley's tongue just right. 

The angel was muttering, something like praying, only directed at her, the holiness of it shining out of the angel, like a soft halo, almost burning the demon. She lifted, gently, the angel's legs, till they lay across her shoulders, thighs pressing against her head, keeping her there. She replaced her tongue with two fingers, mouth moving up to suck, gently at the angel's clit. Her fingers curled, thrust in and out, working in tandem with her mouth, until she felt the angel, eyes squeezed shut, hands curled into tight fists, thighs pressing against her head, clench down around her.

Crowley licked lazily at her, then, making sure Aziraphale was watching, licked the fluid off her fingers, before crawling up the bed again, so she could kiss her. Aziraphale pulled her close, and Crowley threw a leg over her, partly to hold her angel close, and, maybe just a little bit, to rub herself against her, as the angel seemed, still, a little too dazed to do something about that.

"I can honestly say Heaven has never felt that good," Aziraphale informed her.

"That place could never feel as good as you," Crowley said, powering through the slight mortification being that honest always aroused in her.

There were, after all, more important aroused part of her at this moment, which she gently guided one of Aziraphale's hands to.

"Don't need to do any hard work," she murmured into soft white curls, "just your hand is-" she gasped, as a finger slipped into her, "fuck. Yes. Very. Very good."

The angel it turned out, had not gotten rusty at this particular skill, for which Crowley was very thankful, although, she would, of course, have been perfectly happy, if a bit needy, even if all the angel wanted to do after coming herself was to fall asleep. But this, yes. Hands. Mouth on soft, hot, wet parts, fingers pinching nipples just right. She tried to push the angel's face as far into her as she could, to get that mouth closer-

"Angel, fuck-"

"Yes, my love, I'm trying to, If you'll let me-"

"Shut up, Angel, don't stop, don't-"

For a few moments all Crowley could perceive was the feeling of that mouth on her, fingers rubbing sensitive flesh, light curls tickling the insides of her thighs, pressure and pleasure building, muscles tensing, straining, back arching off the bed, until-

"Ngk," Crowley said, "Fuck. Yes. Fuck. Angel. Good. Feel."

"Oh, you've always been so eloquent, my dear," Aziraphale said from between her legs, licking her lips in a manner most certainly _not_ seen in respectable sixteenth century paintings of angels and looking terribly pleased with herself.

Crowley stuck her tongue out at her, though with very little malice. She was, after all, also very pleased with Aziraphale. And by her. Much pleasure all around. She thought she might have blacked out for a second or two, too caught up in how good she felt, because suddenly Aziraphale was laying next to her. Crowley slithered down, just a little, just so she could rest her head on the angel's chest, and she thought the breasts were rather a good addition for this purpose too.

Aziraphale miracled a blanket over them, which was a little unnecessary, as they were laying on top of the one already there, but Crowley, too, felt too good to move, and appreciated it. They dozed off, eventually, murmuring each others praises only somewhat incoherently into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I've had an idea I greatly enjoy for a chapter between Crowley and Aziraphale, which I think will be good, but I think it fits better in with my other fic, which I haven't updated since I started this one, so will probs take a few days off this one to prioritise that. It's going to involve nerding out over depictions of angels in history and unasked for feminist rants because that's the mood I'm in.


	12. Hungarian Dungeon Ritual (Slightly Less Gory And Sexy Than It Might Sound)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Much like the title says.

Lucian lay on his bed. His own bed, in his quarters, a low and square concrete room, some thirty metres below Budapest. Well, slightly outside, but near enough to fit the address. The bed, wide, with sheets in shades of grey, was shoved into the corner of the room. Another corner held the small bathroom, just enough space for a toilet, a sink and a shower. One of the perks of being the leader of the lycans was not having to share amenities. Much of the rest of the space was taken up by a long desk, on which stood a clunky computer, next to a set of weapons, polished and laid out nicely, and heaps of folders and documents, less well cared for, important bits circled in coffee stains. There were shelves, too, but rather than the books they contained documents, data from the experiments. Ancient documents too, though less ancient than himself, detailing the development of the two species descended from Corvinus.

Lucian felt lonely. It wasn't a feeling he was used to. After all, he had lived here for decades, never sharing the room with anyone, with the exception of the occasional guest in his bed. But he didn't feel like inviting Raze or any of the others in. Not for sex, not for company. He was lonely, but he was lonely for Crowley, if that was a thing one could be. 

It hadn't even been long. Three weeks. Three weeks since he'd travelled back on a series of trains, staring out at the passing countryside, listening to Best of Queen on his discman, because if he had to admit to the fact of being in love with Crowley, he might as well do so properly. And he had been toughing it out. He had absolutely refused to admit to himself that he missed Crowley, having apparently picked up some of the demon's stubbornness. Part of his reason for returning, though he had kept this to himself, was that he had wanted to, as it were, test out the relationship. He was unsure whether this was a healthy thing to do, but he had spent nearly three months in London, mostly just hanging out with Crowley, hardly doing any of the work he was meant to, and finding himself not caring all that much about whether it was being done.

It was worrying. It was, in some respects, quite disturbing, even. His life's work, the work of tens of human life times, what? Down the drain because he fell in love? But then, it wasn't quite like that, was it? More, perhaps, like taking a break. A vacation of sorts. To spend some time being happy, for once, not just driven? Surely Sonja would have wanted that for him? She had been dead for six hundred years, surely, if her soul was anywhere-

If her soul. If her soul was anywhere. If it was. Anywhere. Fuck.

Lucian rolled off the bed, violently and gracelessly, lunging for the chair where his coat hung, and grabbed at it, hands searching through the inner pockets till he found it. A post it note, crumpled, the writing nearly illegible, having been opened and closed several times a day, as Lucian considered its contents. At least, he thought, he mostly remembered it. There were a few things he needed.

"Raze!" he shouted, flinging open the heavy door to the dimly lit corridor outside, "Raze, come on, I need-"

"He's not here," a small voice piped up.

Lucian whirled around, confused, till he noticed a young woman. She must be a recently turned one, because he didn't recognize her.

"What?" he demanded, snapping at her more than he'd perhaps intended to.

"He left. With a few others. Don't know what it's about. They mentioned something about scouting a place out. I only overheard."

Lucian squinted at her. Brown freckled skin, Dark brown hair, dressed far nicer than most of the other lycans. Definitely new turn.

"Right, okay, you'll do. Need you to fetch me a couple things. Know your way around?"

She made a sort of shrugging nod gesture. It would do.

"Candles. Don't matter what kind," he frowned, pausing, reconsidered, "unless they're scented. Gives me a headache. Ventilation's not great here. Regular candles, all right? Twenty-seven of them. Bag of salt. Err, some chalk, if you can find it. Sharpie will do if not. And if you should come across any skeletal remains of anything, those wouldn't hurt either."

She frowned at him.

"Are you doing witchcraft? Is that a thing we do?"

"No. It is a thing I am doing, just today. No official policy on witchcraft."

"Awesome," she said, eyes shining.

"Hurry up," he told her, attempting to look very stern and intimidating indeed.

His heart wasn't in it, not really, but she jogged down the corridor anyway. He retreated back into his quarters, to look a few things up. There were books he could use, he had quite a few on the various occult subjects, including a second edition of the Malleus Maleficarum which he suspected Aziraphale would give quite a lot for. But that wasn't going to help with this. Neither, probably, were online wiccan forums, but at least they would have more helpful intentions.

\--

The candles, arranged in a rough circle around him, were all lit. A number of sigils were drawn, poorly, on the floor of his room. At least they looked just about accurate, as far as he could discern from Crowley's awful handwriting. He took the dagger, the most ornate one he had, not that it made a difference, but it seemed like the right choice, and carved a line into his arm, blood welling up. He grimaced at the pain, but clumsily used the blood dripping down to draw a somewhat squiggly pentagram. He had to stop once, to reopen the wound, his regenerative abilities a bit too effective. As far as he understood, this was not ideal, but it would have to do. Now. Chanting.

"Serpens, vita mea, te voco. Hic me adiuvetis. Te desidero, vita mea, sola haec lupus est. Per ignis inferni, me adiuvetis, per aurae. Volo- Really, Crowley, fine, all right, volo coire tecum."

It took a few moments before anything happened, and then, all at once, a column of fire rose from the floor, swirling, spiralling, giving off a burning heat. He took a few steps back, briefly worrying whether he had accidentally summoned something far worse than he intended.

"Morning," the column of fire said, barely audible over the roar of the flames.

Gradually, the flames faded, and in their place stood a sleepy looking Crowley. He yawned. His hair was messy, and short, and he was wearing a shirt with a drawing of Freddie Mercury and a pair of tartan pyjama pants that were definitely not his.

"It's... five in the afternoon," Lucian said, looking, perhaps, a little amused.

"Not in London, it's not," Crowley argued, and stepped gingerly over the still lit candles.

"No," Lucian agreed, "there it's four in the afternoon."

"Very early, either way," Crowley said, slinking over to rest his head on Lucian's shoulder.

"Hey," Lucian said, pressing a quick kiss to Crowley's hair.

"Missed you," Crowley murmured into the fabric of his shirt.

"Missed you too," Lucian told him, voice somehow even fonder than he intended.

"See you got into the angel's pants, then?" Lucian asked, with a bit of a smirk.

Crowley frowned, and looked down at himself.

"Ah," he said, "yes. In several senses, actually."

"Mhm. About time, I think."

"Oh, it was. Ah. See you've got a bed here. Excellent. Was in the middle of a very good nap, you see."

"Three weeks since I saw you, and all you want to do is sleep?" Lucian asked, mock offended.

He bent down, pinching out the candle flames one by one, hearing the thud of Crowley collapsing onto his bed.

"Mmf," Crowley announced.

Fire hazard dealt with, Lucian sat down next to where Crowley lay, face down into Lucian's pillow.

"You know, I had something to ask you," Lucian began, "a reason, really, for calling you here. Beyond missing you, I mean, which is also part of it."

"Mmm," Crowley said, "can it wait just a bit? Can you just lay here a bit, be a good warm wolf man for me?"

"Suppose it can wait a little while longer," Lucian agreed, laying down, manoeuvring himself so he could throw an arm across Crowley's middle and bury his nose in the demon's hair. 

In addition to the usual smells (snake, wine, a hint of sulphur, coffee, fresh green plants Lucian couldn't quite identify), there was also quite a strong smell of angel. Layers of tea, and dry sugary biscuits, and books and dust. Which made sense, he supposed. There was no reason Crowley would sit alone in his flat, pining for Lucian. He didn't mind. sometimes he had to remind himself that he didn't mind, but that didn't make it less true. He wanted Crowley to be happy.

Crowley reach a hand out, grabbing Lucian's hand, interlacing their fingers. Lucian sighed, contentedly. He nudged Crowley's legs a little, shoving his own between them, enjoying the warmth and closeness of the demon. He had missed this.

There was something strange, though, about seeing the demon dressed so... casually. Usually he slept naked, and the clothes he wore, regardless of genders, always had a rather formal designer look to them. And they were always so tight. Seeing him so relaxed looking, it was nice. Like there was no one the demon was trying to impress or seduce. Just a soft mess of limbs in Lucian's bed, muttering complaints about the quality of his sheets. Lucian pressed a soft kiss to Crowley's neck, which elicited a pleased sounding noise.

"You and the angel been doing good?" Lucian asked into Crowley's neck.

Crowley hummed his confirmation, lifting their hands so he could kiss Lucian's knuckles. Then he froze.

"Shit," he said.

"Didn't mention the whole summon in case of emergency ritual to him. Should give him a ring, let him know. Can I have your mobile? You didn't summon mine."

Lucian extricated himself from their cuddle, walking over to the chair, fishing the phone out of his jacket pocket, and tossing it at Crowley, who caught it only in the sense that it landed on his shoulder.

"Ow," Crowley announced, but adding "thanks."

Lucian sat down next to the demon as he called his angel, resting his head on a bony shoulder, arms loosely encircling him. He listened to Crowley's voice, the soft, barely audible sound of Aziraphale's voice, tinged with worry at first, then calmer.

"He sends his love," Crowley let Lucian know as he hung up.

"Does he."

"I think it's about half obligation half sincerity."

"Huh. Right, good to know he's warming up, then."

"He is, and it is," Crowley agreed, one of his hand coming to rest on Lucian's thigh, "I think, maybe, you leaving for a bit helped. He felt, I think, a little left out."

"Hmm. That's understandable. Glad you're figuring it out."

"He agreed, though, that it was a bit rude, summoning me right out of bed."

Crowley gave Lucian a meaningful stare.

Lucian crossed his arms across his chest, only a little defensively.

"How was I meant to know you'd be sleeping at this time of day?" Lucian demanded.

"Have you met me?" Crowley countered.

"Fair," Lucian admitted.

"You could've rung, and I could have just miracled myself here, you know."

"What? You mean you had me scour the place for an absurd amount of candles for nothing? Draw a pentagram in my own blood for no good reason?"

Crowley shrugged, smirking.

"More style this way, isn't it? Just don't feel so stylish showing up like this, is all."

"You're impossible," Lucian informed him, pulling him close for a kiss.

Oh, but he had missed this. Long elegant fingers in his hair, that half snake tongue twining around his, the way Crowley melted into him. His skin was scorching hot, still, from the hellfire, and it felt so good. Lucian pushed a hand up under Crowley's shirt, needing more skin, more close touches. Crowley made a noise somewhere between a moan and a hiss, then pulled away.

"Much as I would love to get out of Aziraphale's pants and into yours, my dear," Crowley said, punctuating his point with a quick kiss to the tip of Lucian's nose, you said you had something to ask me, that sounded important. Better answer that before we get to the fun part of this reunion, yes?"

Lucian sighed, looked down, then back up into yellow eyes staring intently back.

"Right," he said, "here goes. Talk to me about souls."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently it's still no more than two days without a chapter baybie. This and the next one were conceived as a single chapter, but it would've been long, and there needs to be a break, I think. Also I've got stuff to do tonight and can't write anymore and am expecting to be too hungover to do so efficiently tomorrow, and I wanted to get something out.  
Also, know pants traditionally means underwear in English English, but like. The pun works less well then. So. Excuse that. Also i've not had time to proofread oops i will do so, cringeing, and correct it later, promise.  
Also I apologise about the quality of my Latin. I lost both my dictionaries in the flood that killed most of my books, so I had to make do with google translate and whatever I could remember from my classes in 07-09, and so hopefully, if you run it back through there, you will get the joke and it won't be completely garbled.


	13. Hungarian Dungeon Ritual Happenings III: This Time There's Hints Of Gore We're Progressing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fight fight fight vampire fight

"Thank you," he said, leaning down to kiss Crowley, briefly, and then walking over to where his weapons were laid out.

He picked out two of the smaller guns, and considered the retractable arm blade for a moment, before discarding it. If they got too close, they might recognize him. Better not to put on anything he'd ruin by changing.

"Will you stay here?" he asked, turning around to face Crowley, only to find he had gone. 

That is, he seemed to be gone, but then Lucian felt a slithering thing coiling around his leg. He lifted Crowley, now a smallish snake, gently, draping him around his neck. A magic immortal snake couldn't be anything but useful in battle, he thought.

There was another bang on the door, and then a mild crash, as Raze attempted to bang on it once more at the same time as Lucian swung it open. 

"Sorry," Lucian said off-handedly, then, "where are the intruders?"

Raze sniffed the air, frowned, looked at the door as it swung shut, and then at Crowley, who looked back at him and hissed.

"By the eastern entrance. Must have followed us back. Not come in yet, but they're lurking. One of the new recruits went to look. Stupid. Riddled with bullet holes. Not sure whether they'll survive. Why have you got a snake?"

"It's called fashion," Lucian said, projecting a confidence he didn't feel, because he was quite busy plotting how to kill these vampires.

Coming into his home, murdering his pack. They weren't getting bolder, because they had always been bold, the privilege of the, well, privileged. But Kraven was supposed to keep the fucking death dealers off his back, that was their deal. He couldn't, of course, tell them not to attack lycans if they came across each other by accident, that would be far too suspicious, but he could damn well keep them on a tighter leash.

"Did you find another descendant?" he asked over his shoulder, as they hurried eastward. 

"In a manner of speaking."

"Oh?"

Lucian whirled around, getting his hopes up despite himself, nearly dislodging Crowley, who had to cling tighter, almost uncomfortably so.

"Found their corpse," Raze said.

"Ah. Vampires?"

"No. Overdose."

"Unfortunate," Lucian said, and continued forward, sniffing the air, catching just a hint of the bloodsuckers.

"How many are there? Here?"

"Not sure. Half a dozen, maybe."

\--

As Lucian walked, guns in hand, getting updates from the very large and muscular lycan, Crowley tried to feel out the place. He used his powers, naturally, as laying curled around Lucian's neck was nice and warm and required no movement, which was his snake form's favourite amount of movement. In here he could feel the presence of others like Lucian, so many, and a few who didn't... fit.

"_They're hiding. A floor up,_" he hissed at Lucian, and then added, "_thiss iss your... pack mate with benefitss?_"

"Thanks," Lucian said, adding a curt "yes."

"_I can ssee why,_" Crowley hissed, putting as much of a smirk into his hisses as his lack of human lips allowed.

"Shut up," Lucian said.

"Are you... Talking to the snake?"

Raze looked slightly worried, Crowley thought.

"Yes. He's a magic snake, alright, I can explain later."

They rounded a corner, into a larger open room, where a handful of lycans were clustered, a few of them transformed. One of the still human shape ones nodded at Lucian, then pointed out into a dark corridor, which Crowley could just about see ended in a large open room, almost like a silo in shape. All the human ones looked rather strangely at Crowley, who glared right back at them.

Lucian tossed his guns to two of the still human lycans, and rolled his neck, beginning to transform. Crowley changed, too, becoming longer, wider, to accommodate curling around a far larger neck. Wiry fur grew all around him, the skin he was coiled around becoming rougher, less soft, less human. 

When Lucian had fully changed, he made some sort of of complicated hand- well, claw gesture, Crowley supposed, at the other lycans, and stalked into the dark corridor. The soft pads on his paws made him quiet, sabotaged only a little by the scrape of his claws. It felt like he was making himself the bait, the distraction, which Crowley didn't approve of at all, even a little bit, but then, he'd stayed alive since the 1200s, and so Crowley was forced to assume he probably knew what he was doing. He nudged Lucian's massive head with his own small one, in what he intended to be a quiet but supportive gesture, and hoped communicated that he would use all the powers Hell had bestowed on him to keep him safe.

It was quiet, the only sound other than Lucian's movements the slow drip of water, somewhere, like a clock ticking down. Then a scrape, like a boot against concrete, Lucian whirling round, a bullet flying past them, missing Lucian's shoulder by less than an inch. Crowley lost his grip, was flung into the wall, falling down on some debris he very deliberately did not try to see what was. The sound of the shot, still ringing, had alerted the other lycans, who came, charging in. Lucian jumped on to one wall, kicking against it, giving himself enough leverage jump further, onto the floor above them, where the vampires lurked.

Crowley let himself grow huge, till he was able to easily slither up the wall, concrete rough on his scales, to where he could more easily keep an eye on Lucian. A shot pinged off his scales, hurting, but doing no real damage. One of the vampires was standing a few metres away, gun trained on Crowley, a terrified look in his eyes. He hissed, showing his fangs, and rose up to strike, taking another shot, this one lodging between two of his innumerable ribs, but it was not enough to keep his fangs from closing around the vampire's head, ripping, tearing, severing, in a move that was more werewolf than snake. Lucian's influence, he supposed, as he spat out half a head.

There were gunshots, snarls, the screams of one vampire being torn limb from limb. Crowley whirled around, trying to see what was going on. Two of the vampires were fighting two of the wolf form lycans, down where they came in, two vampires were down, the taste of one of them lingering in his mouth. Another vampire was having an unproductive shoot out with two of the human form lycans. Crowley couldn't see Crowley, and flicked his tongue out, tasting the air, searching for the familiar scent of him, filtering away the stench of blood and viscera. There.

He slithered around to the other side, quickly, through a small corridor, looking more like the remnants of an accident than anyone's deliberate design, tasting Lucian's blood on the air. Fuck.

The room he emerged into was large and low, with solid square concrete pillars supporting the roof. Lucian and the vampire were circling one another, the vampire in shadow, though a few old lights in the ceiling shone, flickering, occasionally. Lucian's arm was bleeding, the wound evidently not closing. Crowley took the opportunity to turn both the bullet in him, as well as the ones in the vampire's gun, into regular bullets. Less harmful to lycans, he hoped. 

As the light blinked on, illuminating the vampire's face, Lucian froze, and the vampire took the opportunity, firing twice, hitting him once in the chest, and once in the throat, all of it happening too quick for Crowley to stop. He lunged, fast and huge, all fangs, at her, as her gun miraculously caught fire, and she dropped it, and ran, leaping, grabbing hold of a ladder in what looked like some sort of upward tunnel. 

A column of hellfire sprung up below, chasing her upwards, but Crowley paid no attention to that, returning clumsily to his human form, stumbling, landing in a crouch next to Lucian, who had fallen, but was pushing himself up again.

"Hey, Lucian, Lucian," he asked, a bit frantic, taking the large wolf head in his hands, looking into huge eyes.

Lucian blinked at him, attempting to look around.

"She's gone," Crowley promised, "don't know what vampires are made of, but they don't do well against Hellfire, I hope."

Lucian made a rasping noise in his throat, then seemed to flex the muscles of his neck, till there was the clink of a bullet hitting the concrete floor. He did the same to the bullets in his arm and chest. Crowley let his arms fall to his side.

"You can just do that, huh? No need to get worried, then, I suppose?"

The wolf gave a shrugging nod.

"Asshole," Crowley said, and kissed the dark grey skin of his cheek. 

Lucian licked the side of Crowley's face, dislodging his sunglasses.

"Ew," Crowley said, "wet."

And then he kissed the top of Lucian's muzzle, in case the fondness in his voice hadn't been clear enough. 

"Lets go see how your people are doing, yeah?"

He took Lucian's arm, helping him up, purely through magic, as his earthly vessel didn't really have the space for all that much muscle, and Lucian's wolf form was enormous, the top of his head nearly touching the ceiling. He lead the way until they were back in the larger room, the fighting over. Four of the vampires were dead, now, with the last one tied up, three lycans standing over them, snarling into their face in an attempt at intimidation. 

Crowley and Lucian jumped down from the ledge, Lucian first, and into the lycan headquarters proper. The nasty end of three guns were pointing, very suddenly at Crowley, who put his hands up, innocently.

"Hello," he said, "nice to meet you all. I'm not a vampire, I promise."

He grinned, showing his snake fangs, which looked, to the less trained eye, like long skinny vampire fangs. Lucian looked at him him, and sighed. Crowley didn't quite understand how a massive werewolf could sigh quite so expressively, it was a motion he himself struggled to replicate in his snake form, and so he admired it. One of the human form lycans clicked the safety off on his gun, and Lucian snarled at him, viciously, and a heavy clawed hand came to rest on his shoulder. Hmm. Quite possessive. Interesting. Bit sexy.

Lucian made a series of growls and barks and just general weird noises at the other lycans, almost as if talking to them. Or, by the tone of his barks, giving orders. The last thing he did, slow and clear, so the tied up vampire could see, was drag a clawed finger across his throat, where his fur was still slick with blood. Then he began to walk out, claw still firmly on Crowley's shoulder, dragging him along.

"I'm not allowed to watch your work?" Crowley asked, mock whining, voice deliberately loud enough for everyone to hear, "what am I, just your boy-toy?"

Lucian let out a choked growl that might have been a laugh or some wolf language expression of anger. Crowley looked the tied up vampire in the eye and winked.

After walking around a series of corners, till they were far enough away, Crowley suspected, from the interrogation going on back there, Lucian slumped against a wall. He leaned there as his form collapsed in on itself, shrinking and compacting until Lucian was human again. And very naked. And the holes in his throat, chest and arm hadn't healed properly yet, though the blood had stopped running, and now merely were macabre red trails down his skin.

Crowley leaned down, pressing a kiss to each of the wounds, which, feeling the intensity of the demon's thoughts on the matter, quickly healed themselves.

"Asshole," Lucian said, voice still a little raw, but he looked at Crowley like he would quite like to kiss him.

"For speeding up your healing? Rude."

"For telling everyone. Like that. Don't necessarily mind them knowing, but, ah..."

Crowley tried his best to look smug, which was, fortunately, a skill he had had millennia to perfect. Lucian pulled him close, and, quite literally, kissed the smirk off his face. He tasted like blood, which Crowley hadn't expected to think was hot, but he did. Lucian pulled back, hands on Crowley's shoulders, and fuck, he was beautiful.

"Could you miracle me some clothes?" Lucian asked.

Crowley pouted, quite happy with his nude lycan, but with a snap of his fingers he was dressed. Lucian looked down at himself.

"Really a one track mind when it comes to music, I see."

While Lucian was wearing his regular dark trousers, on top he had a black Queen t-shirt. Crowley enjoyed seeing him just a little more casual than he usually was. He also quite enjoyed seeing Lucian's mostly bare arms. They were exceedingly good arms. Besides, it was his own shirt, worn thin and soft, and seeing Lucian in it _did_ something to his insides. Crowley shrugged.

"Genuinely not my fault," he said, which was sort of true. 

There was probably something he could do to the Bentley to stop it happening, but he didn't mind much. Freddie had been a friend, and possibly a slightly supernatural being in his own right, and Crowley liked being reminded of him when he drove.

"Back there, did you talk to them? Is there a lycan wolf language?"

Lucian wagged his hand non-committally.

"I mean, language is a bit ambitious maybe. Communication, yeah."

"So what did you tell them?" 

"Just what to ask them about. And to- well, maybe you figured that last bit out yourself."

Crowley nodded, not commenting. He was a demon, he wasn't getting into whatever morals and ethics were involved in this conflict. War had never been something he enjoyed, but he respected the need to fight the ones who used to own you. Especially when, centuries later, it was still many of the same individuals.

"Back there... " Lucian began, "did you... Did you do alchemy on the bullets? Because the two last one, those were definitely not silver.

"Oh, yeah, figured regular bullets did less harm to your wolfy nature."

"Why," Lucian asked, "would you not simply have magicked all the bullets out of her gun?"

Crowley stared blankly at him.

"Ah," he said, "didn't think of that."

"For someone who's older than the earth you're not that bright, huh?"

"Well!" Said Crowley, although it took him a while to think of a suitable follow up.

"Well," he added, a solid half minute later, "why don't you have UV lamps set up all over the place here?"

"Vampires just cut the power. To this whole part of the city, actually. They do not give a shit about the humans they affect or inconvenience. They did it once, and fighting in the complete dark's a much bigger pain. We've technically got some big UV type flash light things, but they're easily shootable. Surprisingly it's just not worth it. Working on a concept for bullets containing ultraviolet radiation somehow, though. But it's... challenging."

"Huh. All right. Fair. And, you know, garlic, stakes, crosses, all that?"

"Doesn't do shit, unfortunately. We tried. I mean, they get a bit sick if they eat human food, but it's you know, inconvenient and unpleasant, not deadly."

"Ah. Inconvenient."

"Yes," Lucian agreed, "will you do the same for my pack mate? The one who got hurt? Make the bullets disappear or not be silver or something?"

"Course," Crowley said, and frowned, a moment, locating the only pieces of silver he could sense nearby, which promtly transported themselves from where they were, and melded, transforming themselves into a small silver ring, shaped like a snake coiled around a finger, which promtly teleported itself to Aziraphale's nightstand.

"Done," he said, "she should recover."

"Thank you," Lucian said, and kissed his cheek.

"But let's go back," he continued, "my people can handle the interrogation."

"Yes," Crowley said, "lets," and followed him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I am going to address that, but not in this chapter. I mean, evidently. Probably you've read it.


	14. Budapest/London/Budapest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Less action than the last one.

"Lucian!"

Raze's voice rang through the corridors, which were really just functional lighting away from being tunnels. Lucian turned around, coming to a halt, Crowley to his credit only partially crashing into him.

"Yes?"

"What's going on?" Raze demanded.

He had been around for the last six hundred years, and had no problems challenging Lucian, which was a large part of why he made such a good second in command. Another part was how imposing he was. People listened to him.

"Who is ...this?" he added, gesturing at Crowley with something like distaste.

"Ah, fine. Raze Crowley, Crowley Raze. Crowley is my..."

"Boyfriend," Crowley said, possibly with a wink, but it was hard to say, he had materialised his glasses back on as soon as they got back to the others.

There was definitely a grin involved, though, Lucian could hear it in his voice.

"...Yes," he confirmed, turning to give Crowley a mock stern glare.

"And he... knows," Raze didn't so much ask as state.

"Yes," Lucian said, "he's... not a human. But not a vampire. Not a spy for them either. Completely safe."

"That's me," Crowley added, "safe."

Raze stared at them with what Lucian thought might be a mixture of confusion and disapproval. Crowley, seeing this, slipped his arm around Lucian's waist, pointedly, and smirked.

"Met him in London. He's just here, ah, visiting."

He glanced at Crowley, who was grinning stupidly and seemed to be enjoying this awkwardness immensely, head swaying slightly, snakelike. Raze frowned.

"Visitor," Crowley confirmed, "yeah. Just popping by for a quickie and a minor vampire invasion. All good fun. Be out of your fur in no time."

"Uh-huh."

"Right, let you good boys sort this out on your own," Crowley said, and Lucian worried for a second he was going to disappear, but he simply collapsed into his snake form, falling at Lucian so he caught parts of him, and was able to drape him carefully around his neck and shoulders.

Crowley, currently quite large and heavy, buried his head under Lucian's hair, his tail snaking under his shirt. Lucian shrugged apologetically.

"I've tried getting him to stop the dog jokes, but the asshole claims it's his nature," Lucian told Raze, and was rewarded by two pinprick stings, as Crowley bit him.

They healed over, immediately, of course, and barely hurt. Lucian smiled, thinly, reaching up, nevertheless, to stroke Crowley's scales.

"What... is he?"

"Ah, demon. Which, I suppose, explains the behaviour."

Crowley poked his head out from under Lucian's hair to hiss wordlessly.

"Was there anything else? Did you get anything out of the vampire?"

"Not yet, Still working on him," Raze said, who seemingly had very little reaction to the concept of a demon, though Lucian suspected there would be a more in-depth conversation about it when Crowley was no longer present.

"Well," Lucian said, "best get back to it, then. I'll be in my quarters."

_"Knock,"_ Crowley hissed, peeking over Lucian's shoulder, wishing for eyelids with which to wink.

\--

In Soho, Aziraphale was closing his shop for the day. It was late afternoon, around a quarter to eight, and he found he had no energy for dealing with customers. Not that there were many. The evening was rainy, and most of the customers he had had so far were simply looking for a place to hide from the rain for a little while. Which wasn't, in itself, a problem, but they dripped all over the floor, and sometimes even the books. He miracled the poor volumes dry as soon as the offending humans were out of sight, of course, but even the brief dampness must, surely, be bad for the poor dears. So closing it was. 

The shop had been open as long as it had that day not out of concern for rain soaked Londoners (they were Londoners, after all, and used to it), but rather because he felt he needed something to do. Crowley had, true to his word, stayed with Aziraphale for the last three weeks or so, and the angel had rather gotten used to his presence in the shop. He had left, of course, on occasion, to perform some temptation or water his plants, but he had always returned within a few hours. And it had only, really, been a few yet, but Aziraphale, being a functional angel, had got up at seven in the morning to get ready to open his shop, and therefore had not _really_ talked to Crowley since the previous evening. And, frankly, talked was perhaps an ambitious word for what they had done. Aziraphale nearly blushed at the memory. 

The case was, at any rate, that he had felt a little lonely since he learned that Crowley was no longer simply a few meters above him, but rather a full day away by train. Aziraphale had, possibly, theoretically, looked up the mess of trains and buses it took to get there, purely out of curiosity. The curiosity had persisted through several conversation with a tired and underpaid employee at a travel agency, who, when she got home that day, found she had won 2000£ in the lottery. It was, perhaps, a slightly frivolous miracle, but Aziraphale was ready to defend it.

In his proper kitchen upstairs the angel made himself a cup of cocoa, perfect for the rain. He intended to read in bed for a while, because it had the lovely roof window on which to listen to the soothing patter of rain, and the bed was comfortable, and not at all because it smelled like Crowley. Aziraphale added the tiniest bit of chilli to the cocoa, not because it was his own preference, but because it was Crowley's. Goodness, he was becoming rather sentimental these days. Which wasn't, perhaps, a bad thing for an angel to be.

Aziraphale was halfway through the first chapter of his book, and slightly further into his cocoa, when he glimpsed something. The street-lamps outside had turned on, and even at this angle they provided some additional light, which had caught on something on his night stand. He peered at it through his superfluous yet nifty reading glasses. It was a small silvery object that he could not remember having seen there. A very small snake.

"...Crowley?" he asked, hesitantly, feeling a little silly.

The object did not respond, and when Aziraphale leaned over he could see that it was, in fact, a small ring in the form of a snake. Oh. Strange. Having very little experience with the kind of popular media that involved curses, Aziraphale picked it up, and slid it onto his right ring finger, next to his golden signet ring. They matched neither in material nor subject matter, but despite, and perhaps even because this, they perfectly represented the two of them. Aziraphale stroked a fingertip across the tiny metal scales, and saw that the snake's head was wearing microscopic sunglasses.

"Oh," he said, softly, to the empty room, "oh Crowley, darling."

For once he wished he owned a mobile telephone, so that he could send Crowley an electronic note about this, thanking him, perhaps even using some of the small signs to form a heart, as he had seen somewhere once.. But then, Crowley's own mobile telephone was laying on top of a pile of Crowley's discarded clothes in the corner, folded neatly by the angel, and he didn't really feel the need to send this particular message via Lucian.

It was not, truly, that he minded the young half immortal. It did sting, a little bit, that Crowley had decided to... To _get together_ with Lucian before he had with Aziraphale, and after only knowing him for a week or two. But then, things had been moving rather slowly between himself and the demon. Perhaps... Perhaps it was for the best. And it was, he supposed, a comfort that if Crowley needed to be romantically involved by someone Earthly (if not entirely human), that he then chose someone who so uncannily resembled Aziraphale himself.

The angel looked down at himself, shuffling the blankets a little. He certainly wasn't as close as the lycan to what humanity currently felt was the epitome of male physique. His belly was soft and rounded, as were many other parts of him. There were few traces of muscle, but then, who needed those when one could miracle things to where they belonged. But that didn't matter to Crowley, did it? Did it? He supposed he was technically able to alter his vessel to be more muscular and lean, if he wanted to, just as he and (mostly) Crowley had experimented with altering what gender and parts their bodies had. He found he didn't want to. He was _comfortable_. He wasn't all flashy and _cool_. This body was worn in just right, and he had had it for six millennia now, and he liked it this way. And, based on the previous weeks, Crowley was definitely not averse to engaging in, ah, sexual activities with this body. No. No, that was a silly concern to have, he decided. Still, he drew the blanket back over his belly, bunching it into abstract shapes, before covering it up with his book again, letting himself sink back into the story.

\--

Back in Lucian's quarters, Crowley was dumped on the bed, as Lucian disappeared into the tiny bathroom to shower off the blood. It seemed a lot of work, Crowley thought, more than simply snapping ones fingers and being clean and refreshed, but he supposed he could understand the appeal of dousing oneself in hot water. He shivered. The bed was cold against his scales, now, without the lovely warm werewolf to provide much needed heat. He curled himself up into the tightest spiral he could manage, but, being cold blooded, it wasn't much help. He would simply have to languish here, slowly freezing to death, until Lucian deigned to return.

It took Lucian all of five minutes to reappear in a puff of steam, hair damp, a towel around his waist.

_"Here,"_ Crowley hissed.

_"I'm dying,"_ he added.

"So dramatic," Lucian said, shaking his head, but smiled that very good smile he shared with the angel and obliged, sitting down on the bed and scooping Crowley into his lap. 

Warm. Warm and good. Crowley flicked his tongue out. Warm and good and smelling nice and not like someone who had been recently shot, just nice. Well, a slight hint of wet dog, but that could be excused. Crowley rose, slithering up Lucian's chest, around his back, looping around his stomach a few times, once under a thigh after nudging the towel up a bit, and ending up with his head resting Lucian's arm. He was careful to avoid Lucian's hair (wet and cold, no good, currently, for heat, though usually an excellent place to rest), and nudged the crook of Lucian's elbow gently, in what he hoped was a clear request for warm hands stroking cold and shivering scales. He hissed in satisfaction when he got his way.

It felt good. It felt very good to be wrapped all around Lucian, so close to all that heat, so close to _him_. Much closer than could be achieved with his awkward human body, full of limbs and joints and bones that weren't ribs or vertebrae. Such unnecessary nonsense all of it. But he could feel so much skin, so much warmth, and granted, scales were less sensitive to touch than skin, by necessity, but Crowley was quite happy he could experience both.

_"I like you,"_ he hissed.

Lucian did a complicated mix of pulling at Crowley, only a little unpleasantly, and bending and struggling against the coils that encircled him tightly, until he got close enough to kiss the spot between Crowley's eyes.

"You too," he said, "you too."

"Any chance," he added, "that we could change up the position a little bit? Only, it's a little uncomfortable for me."

Crowley hissed, wordlessly, bumping his snout into Lucian's arm for emphasis.

_"Warm,"_ he argued.

Lucian thought for a moment, rubbing mindless little circles on Crowley's back.

"How about if I change, you can sleep in my fur? Very warm, I've been informed. By you."

Crowley hissed thoughtfully, and nodded, loosening the knot he had tied himself into around Lucian, slithering down into a tidy spiral next to him on the bed. He rested his head on his back, and watched as Lucian discarded his towel (nice), and his form twisted and grew (less nice, but promising warmth), Crowley sliding, gradually, towards him, as his increased mass caused the mattress to sink.

His tongue flicked out, attempting to smell the transformation. He was curious as to whether it smelled like the moon. He had been, of course, and it had primarily smelled dusty, but it was a specific kind of dusty. The transformation just smelled gradually less and less like human and more and more like wolf, but still stopping somewhere in the middle.

\--

Lucian stretched, rolling his massive neck, running a claw through his fur to make sure it was sufficiently fluffed. While this form wasn't particularly fluffy, at least in the cute sense, that most people seemed to associate with the word, it was warm. He laid down on his side, the changes to his neck and spine not really accommodating sleeping on his back, and made a sort of clumsy come hither motion at Crowley, who emitted a sound he could only assume was the serpentine equivalent of a laugh. He grinned the lycan version of a grin, which mostly involved showing off a mouthful of fangs. 

Crowley slithered up to him, over his legs, coiling himself around a stretched out foot, sliding up across a thigh, diving into the thick fur covered much of his lower torso. Crowley's tongue flicked out, briefly, tickling him. Otherwise, though, the feeling of scales was subdued. His skin in this form was significantly thicker, less sensitive. Built for defence rather than intimacy.

_"Good and soft,"_ Crowley hissed, from just below his neck, _"warm."_

Lucian made the closest noise to a purr he could manage with this body, which was more of a soft growl. But Crowley seemed to understand his intention, sliding up along his neck to rest his comparatively small head in the fur along Lucian's cheek. Crowley was a fairly large snake, though Lucian could still close a clawed around the widest of his coils. He stroked the pads of his fingers over scales, relieved that scales were far less prone to cuts from unwary claws than skin was.

Crowley had not explained, although to be fair Lucian had never asked, why demons had animal forms. Or animal aspects. Just that they had them. He wondered whether Crowley had been a serpent before he fell. Or whether Aziraphale had some sort of animal form he assumed when in the mood. Probably not, he thought. The angel seemed a bit to fuzzy to mess around as an animal. He would have to ask Crowley, when he both remembered and had a mouth capable of words.

He wondered too how long Crowley would stay. And how long he would stay himself. No more than a month or two, he'd promised Crowley. And he found himself wanting to go back. To get away from this conflict, to just delegate everything to Raze and communicate his wishes and suggestions via text. They could handle it. Probably. Right?

It felt very good, just relaxing and enjoying himself. And, as he'd thought this morning, before getting as far as summoning Crowley, Sonja would probably have wanted him to be happy, wouldn't she? She would have wanted him to have a better life than the one in chains? Although, given the chance to go back, to start afresh, would he have chosen to be free from the start if it meant he never would have met her? He genuinely could not tell, and it made him feel frightfully guilty. Nearly two hundred years as a slave in the balance, but without that, without Sonja, would he have been who he was today?

_"Sssad wolf?"_ Crowley hissed, which meant either that snakes could smell emotions, that demons were telepathic, or that Lucian's lycan features were far more expressive than he had previously assumed.

He blinked open an eye, to see Crowley's looking into his, head raised. Lucian shook his head, carefully, so as not to disturb or dislodge Crowley, and reached a hand up to stroke over the scales on his head. He made a soft woofing sort of sound, more dog like than he preferred, but his repertoire of friendly noises in this shape was very limited.

_"Hmmm,"_ Crowley hissed, _"good wolf. Sssoft. Appreccciate you."_

As they both knew perfectly well, Crowley was capable of speaking in full sentences in his snake shape, if with some extra emphasis on the s, but he was apparently choosing not to. Perhaps in sympathy with Lucian's current speechlessness. Lucian licked his scaly face, trying not to hit the snake's eyes. It was as close as he was getting to kissing his head. 

Perhaps it was best not to dwell too much. He had other things to dwell on that inspired less sadness, less conflict, fewer remnants of grief like fragments of glass in his chest. He could, for example, dwell on how important to him Crowley was becoming. Not, granted, two hundred years of knowing each other close, it was a little early for that, although there was certainly potential. But Crowley was _caring_. Not, possibly, a descriptor the demon would be proud of, but he was. And being with him felt _good_. And, surprisingly, uncomplicated. Easy. No threat of discovery looming over them. No collar poking silver into his throat and preventing him from changing, that was certainly a bonus. Just another being to l- to be with, who understood that sometimes being human was just too much of a bother. It was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided that regardless of what shampoos and other hair products he uses, Lucian's hair always just smells like wet dog when damp. Which isn't very sexy of him, but it's kind of funny.  
Also Aziraphale gets some body issues projected onto him, poor dear. Reading about him, seeing art of him, such a contrast, body shape wise, to Crowley, yet still portrayed as just as desireable, frankly has me tearing up more than is reasonable (especially as it mainly happens in relation to smut, both art and fic) and it is, somehow, helping me hate my own body a little bit less. So. Thanks Michael Sheen for not keeping the Lucian level body? But remaining the exact same amount of hot.


	15. Interlude 3: The Sheening 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley, wily serpent, inspiration for at least three separate trickster gods, deceives his boyfriends. Foul trickery. Most awful.

"Do you... do you enjoy being a lycan?" Aziraphale asked, as if that was simply how polite conversation worked.

"What kind of question is that? Do you enjoy being an angel?"

"Yes, in fact, I do. It's nice. Though I don't really have much experience being anything else, I suppose," Aziraphale replied, looking thoughtful, spearing another piece of glazed potato on his fork.

They were having dinner, just the two of them. Crowley, wily serpent that he was, had invited them both, separately, to dine with him, and then suddenly invented an excuse, some extremely urgent demonic business, leaving the two of them alone. He was hoping, Lucian supposed, that they would get along. Get to know each other better. So far, it had not been pleasant.

"I don't either, you know. I wasn't turned. I was born like this. First of my species, first lycan, first to be able to change my form."

"Oh! Oh, I didn't realise, I'm sorry."

"So I'm not _cursed_ with this form, or anything like that. Not bitter about having my _humanity stolen_, if that's what you were wondering."

"Oh, oh my dear boy, I'm sorry-"

"It took me quite a long time, actually, to accept the wolf part of me. Thanks in large part, of course, to the vampires who owned me. It was so important to me, you see, to prove to them that I was better. That I could be civilized, like them, refined. Well, as much as a blacksmith can be, either way. But the vampires didn't care, of course. We were just beasts to them. Beasts who conveniently weren't allergic to ultraviolet radiation and who could look human and so follow orders. Do all the work they were too important to do. Sleep in cells. Guard them in the daylight. Fight our more feral brethren for them. Die for them."

Aziraphale looked upset, and quite sympathetic, really, but Lucian had started talking about this, and he would keep doing so until he was finished.

"And to keep us from changing at the wrong time, and attacking them, we were made to always wear these heavy collars, with silver spikes pointing at our throats at all times. To kill us, should we attempt to change without permission. So it is, in fact, quite important to me to be able to change into my other form when I want to."

To underline his point he let his fangs grow out, his irises expand, darken and become shot through with moonlight. Aziraphale gulped, clearly a little nervous, though he was the more powerful supernatural being of the two by far. Lucian took a sip of his wine, maintaining eye contact, wilfully extending the tense silence as his fangs clanked awkwardly against the glass.

"It's quite the same as Crowley, if you think about it. We both need to spend time in both forms. And it took me, as I said, a long time to accept this part of me, and I am not going to let anyone make me feel less than proud to be a lycan."

"Ah," Aziraphale said, "yes, I suppose I can understand that. I'm sorry, dear boy, I meant no offence."

Lucian raised his eyebrows, but didn't say anything, taking another, longer, sip of his wine. But he let his more wolfish features fade. Aziraphale, to his credit, did not look relieved, he simply smiled a reassuring smile, a little too familiar on that face of theirs. Presumably, having known Crowley for the whole of history, he was used to that kind of thing.

"I can see," the angel continued, "why Crowley took a shine to you."

"Because I look like his at that point unrequited love of six thousand years?"

Aziraphale sputtered.

"Well," Aziraphale said, drinking some water, recovering, "Well. Yes, possibly that. But he's always had a thing for the, err, underdog."

Lucian glared at him.

"Sorry, sorry, poor phrasing."

"Crowley been telling you to make dog jokes? He keeps promising not to make them but, well, I suppose his demonic nature comes out in the end."

"Oh yes," Aziraphale agreed, "it usually does. But you know, it's not as if he is particularly evil- well, don't tell him I said that, but he knows, really, he does. You know all the really bad things he has claimed responsibility for, world war II, the black death, the 1990s, they're all just humanity's own atrocities. His actual inventions are, you know, Ikea, London traffic, inconveniences, really, rather than true evil. He will defend it, of course, but deep down he's just not particularly evil. He was dreadfully upset, you know, about the whole flood business."

"Flood?"

"Yes, back in, oh, what was it. Around five thousand years ago I think. Chap named Noah, perhaps you're familiar?"

"Noah's fucking ark?"

"That's, uh, well, not what he called it, but yes. Dreadfully upset, Crowley was. You know, he saved as many children as he could. Didn't tell me until centuries later. Worried I would have thwarted him, I suppose."

"And would you?"

Aziraphale was suddenly very interested in the details of the remnants of his dinner, poking at them with his fork.

"I.. I would have had to, I think. It would certainly have been my orders, if the higher ups had known. But I'm very very grateful that Crowley didn't tell me. God's plan is, after all, ineffable. But it is often cruel, and we do not get the privilege of understanding why things must be as they are."

Lucian narrowed his eyes. It sounded like an excuse to him, but the angel was all but wringing his hands, and did look genuinely very upset about it all.

"But you must always obey without question?"

"Oh," Aziraphale said, looking up, "yes. Asking questions, well. That's, ah, that's what Crowley did."

"Those don't sound like good working conditions," Lucian said, voice carefully neutral.

It was a bit late, perhaps, to tempt this particular angel to revolution. If Crowley hadn't managed it in six thousand years, it was probably not going to happen. Still. Still.

\--

"I don't even _like_ it there," Aziraphale said, after another bottle and a half of wine and some really rather marvellous little chocolatey treats which Lucian suspected Crowley had picked out explicitly for the angel.

"No? Is it not Heavenly?"

They were still in Crowley's flat, from which the demon remained suspiciously missing. Aziraphale had used a minor miracle to get into Crowley's wine cellar, and they had found some bottles Aziraphale had assured Lucian were Crowley's favourites, and that this was entirely justified, as they had been tricked into this by that wily serpent. Lucian did not have access to it, though he had been staying with Crowley in the two weeks that had passed since his return to London, but then, he had had to ask Crowley to make a proper lock and key for the front door. Crowley came and went as he pleased, opening and locking, if those were even the proper words to describe what he did, using his infernal powers, and it had taken Lucian a good half hour to convince him to find a worldly equivalent so he, too, could come and go at his leisure.

"It is!" Aziraphale said with feeling, "that's just the issue! It's all-"

He gestured wildly, spilling a few drops of wine on Crowley's sofa, not noticing, his face busy shuffling through a variety of expressions by which he, Lucian thought, must be trying to communicate Heavenly flaws.

"Sound of Music," he said, gulping down some more wine. 

He'd had rather more than Lucian, or possibly lycans and angels processed it differently. He seemed, at any rate, to be a little more affected than Lucian, who still remained in the pleasantly fuzzy and nice state, before getting quite to the point of very actively being able to feel your teeth, but not your footsteps. 

"Sound of Music?"

"It's very popular up there."

Lucian stared at the angel in disbelief, then shook his head. The world was opening up for him, but all that was revealed was sheer and utter nonsense.

"No, no. Earth is the place to be, really. You- Well, humans, rather, have invented some marvellous things. Crêpes. Food, really, at all. Wine. No one in Heaven thought of wine, that was all humanity. Art. Literature. Tea. Tartan. All the good ideas, really, humans."

Aziraphale went on like for a good while, expanding on this list, as Lucian drank, sinking deeper into the sofa. Much as he hated to give it to Crowley, this stupid plan of his was working. The angel was the exact amount of endearing and charming and utterly frustrating that seemed like it would appeal to Crowley. And Lucian found himself liking him, too, despite some of his more tactless lines of questioning. Though perhaps some of that was the wine talking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewatched Rise of the Lycans because my cat refused to leave my lap for three solid hours so here are some more thoughts on that whole sitch. Sorry this is shorter. It sort of. Finished itself.


	16. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> crow

As soon as Crowley got out of there he was filled with regret, and, more, an all consuming doubt. Was this a terrible idea? Lucian and Aziraphale would say yes. Would they fight? Dislike each other more? Or, united in their annoyance at Crowley, decide to both leave him? He knew, strictly speaking, that this was unlikely. The most probable result was their impermanent annoyance. But Crowley, never one to listen to reason, still spent a good solid half hour walking blindly around London and visualising in brutal detail their respective break up speeches. 

For all the bravado and coolness he exuded, he desperately needed them both to love him. He wouldn't admit that, possibly not even to himself, at least on other nights, when he hadn't prepared for the evening by downing a bottle of wine as efficiently as he could.

Crowley shuddered, and regretted leaving in too much of an anxious hurry to bring a jacket. Aziraphale would sense it if he miracled his from the flat, and this was not the time to show weakness. Right then. He wrapped his arms around himself, shivering, seeing his breath rise before him in a cloud, not because it really was that cold, but because it felt like it, and nature was nothing if not obliging of his sense of drama.

There was real demonic business he had to get on with tonight, but not nearly as pressing as he had made it out to sound. It was classic, old school. Just a temptation. Just get this party member to accept a _suggestion_ from the opposition, a deal or compromise, just slightly lower the integrity both of himself and his party members, making the world worse a little bit at a time. Crowley headed to the bar where he knew the man would be.

It was too easy, not even fun. The man was so enthusiastic about it, and there was no challenge. Just a sort of vague disappointment in humanity these days, which must be something he'd picked up from Aziraphale. So he stayed behind after the politician had left, having another glass of wine. And then another. After a while a third. Enough, and in such a way, that after the first hour of lonely drinking the bartender asked him if he was okay with genuine concern in his eyes.

"Jusst... boyfriend troubles," Crowley muttered, despite himself.

"Yeah? Tell me about it."

Crowley looked up at him, frowning hard enough for it to show around his dark glasses. The bartender shrugged. He was, Crowley noted, very large, and looked as though he should have been the bouncer instead.

"Why?" he added, when the man wouldn't explain himself.

The man shrugged wide shoulders.

"It helps, sometimes. It tends to be what people want to do when they're sitting alone at a bar."

Crowley snorted, and downed his glass.

"Think I'll have another of these instead, thanks. There's no problem that can't be solved with enough wine."

The bartender raised his eyebrows, but poured him another glass.

Three glasses later he suddenly discovered that he was explaining his plan to the bartender in great detail, and he wasn't entirely sure how that had started.

"'S jus'- 'S just that I need them to like each other, y'know? Cause.. Cause if they don't love me then I will die. I'll just. Shrivel up. Turn to dust. Go back to Hell."

"I'm sure your boyfriends will get along," the bartender said, in the tone of voice of someone who has had to make this exact reassurance four times in the last half hour and is regretting starting this conversation.

"But what if- Whattif they don't? What if they decide to- to join forces and leave me?"

"What, for each other?"

Crowley grimaced.

"No. Nah. Not- not into each other, they wouldn't be. But just. Decide they can do better. Or go back. What if Lucian goes back to Budapest again? What if 'Zira goes back to Hea- uh. Helsinki? I'll have to kill myself. Burn myself right up. Hellfire and brimstone."

"You're being just a little dramatic, don't you think?"

Crowley glared at him, though thanks to his glasses it had little effect.

"I'm the exact fucking right amount of dramatic," Crowley said, and emptied his glass for emphasis.

The bar was spinning pleasantly, and it was taking more concentration not to fall of the bar stool than it had an hour ago, yet he still felt bad. Anxious. Blood crawling with tiny little snakes, wriggling about inside his (useless and purely for decoration) veins.

"It's just," he continued, entirely unprompted, "that they're both so pretty, you know? They're so pretty. They have this smile, like the sun. Well, one of them more like the moon."

He grinned at his own joke for longer than most sober people would have.

"I love them both so fucking much," he told the nearly empty inside of his glass, "do you think they know?"

Around midnight he decided it would be wise to head home, not because the bartender had, kindly, informed him that he had had quite enough and made him drink a glass of water, but because Lucian and Aziraphale had been there for about seven hours, and probably needed a break. He stood, swaying slightly, outside in the cold, enjoying his current inability to feel the cold for a few moments before he made a face like he was dying, and sobering up. Wouldn't do showing back up this drunk, probably.

When Crowley got back to his flat, it was quiet. He sighed. Perhaps it hadn't gone according to plan, perhaps Aziraphale had left, or Lucian, or both, too angry with him to- No. He would check. He would check first, in case he was wrong, in case they were merely enjoying a companionable silence- He interrupted himself by collapsing down to the floor, limbs and hair and skin disappearing, scales taking their place. Emotions were more stable, he found, as a snake. Not quite the range human brains had. He slithered towards the living room.

The floor was too cold against the scales of his belly, and he moved quickly. Stealth was usually no issue in this shape. He could hear the soft scrape of scales against flooring, but they probably could not. Worry still buzzed in his head, but muted, serpentine instincts taking control. Rounding the corner he could see the warmth of them, two roughly human shapes, glowing hotly. Good. He paused for as long as he could, his instincts all telling him to approach the warmth. Quiet, still. 

Crowley slithered up the arm of the sofa, flicking his tongue out to taste the air. Wine and food and angel and wolf, especially the last two, their closeness allowing him to appreciate the similarities and differences in their scent. Both good, both so good. He slid slowly down to rest between them, where their knees were just an inch apart. Aziraphale was sitting far more sprawled than usual in his sleep. He nearly leapt out of his scales when he felt a hand on his back.

"Hi," Lucian said, so softly it was almost a whisper.

Crowley twisted and rose, slithering up Lucian's chest until they were eye to eye, one of his hands coming up to support Crowley's coils in the air.

"_Have fun?_" he hissed, tongue flicking out, a whisper of a touch at the corner of Lucian's mouth, the closest he though Lucian would accept as a hello kiss from him in this form.

Lucian nodded, his eyes a little unfocused, from both sleep and alcohol but fixated on a spot just behind Crowley's head as it swayed. He curled himself around Lucian's hand, once, and nudging his cheek with his nose. 

"Did.... Did you do the important demonic work?" Lucian asked, frowning, as if trying to remember further details.

Crowley nodded, and curled the rest of his body away from Aziraphale, so all of him was coiled in Lucian's lap, and then, slowly, so as not to startle Lucian too badly, he let himself grow limbs, and skin, and hair, and all the other bits humanity required of him, until he was sitting, human, in his lap. His hands found their way into the lycan's hair, as Lucian's hands came to rest on his lower back, and he leaned in for a kiss.

"Hmm," he said, words muffled by their proximity to Lucian's mouth, which was trying to get back to the kissing again, "I have an idea."

Suddenly, without much sense of anything having happened, the three of them found themselves laying on Crowley's bed, which, always eager to please, had stretched itself quite a bit wider to comfortably accommodate three grown men shaped beings. It had also popped a few more pillows into existence, just to be safe, and the sheets had changed themselves, just to be polite, to the nicest black silk ones with little gold snakes embroidered at the corners. All Crowley's bedclothes were very nice and expensive, of course, but these were the only ones he'd bothered to have embroidered. Of course, what with the corners being tucked under the mattress you couldn't see it, but it was the principle of the thing.

"Did you... Did you magic us from one room in your flat to another?" Lucian asked with a level of incredulity that made Crowley wonder how well they knew each other after all.

"Possibly," Crowley said, arranging the still sleeping angel until he looked comfortable.

He lay in the middle, Lucian on one side, Aziraphale on the other, feeling supremely happy about this fact. Lucian rolled over onto his side, moving so he could rest his head on Crowley's chest, throwing an arm over his side. Crowley kissed the top of his, head, running a hand through already messy hair. His left hand, quietly, found Aziraphale's, and entwined their fingers, the angel's hand twitching slightly, but not seeming to rise to consciousness. The angel didn't sleep often, but when he did it was deep.

"A bit insensitive, or at least unthinking, but mostly good," Lucian murmured into his chest.

"Hmm?"

"Azi- Azzz- Aziphal- your angel."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's about accurate," Crowley agreed, "didn't argue too much, did you?"

Lucian shook his head, skull striking Crowley's ribs in a mildly painful way.

"Showed me his wings," Lucian mumbled.

"Yeah? Were they good?"

Lucian hummed in thought.

"Not as pretty as yours," he concluded.

A smile tugged at Crowley's lips.

"Good."

He could feel the prickling of Lucian's beard through the thin fabric of his clothes, the way his fingers sneakily slid in between the buttons of his shirt, just to touch warm skin, to be close. Aziraphale's hand warm in his own, the soft and ever present glow of him radiating warmth and goodness. Crowley was, currently, an intensely happy demon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While my ideal thing to read is endless fluff, somehow I feel guilty when that's all I write.


	17. AfterAftermath/ Bookshop 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pillow talk? Bonding.

Aziraphale woke. This in itself was disconcerting. He wasn't in the habit of falling asleep, and most certainly not without meaning to. Blinking his eyes open he thought for a moment he was back in that dark and dreary prison cell in the late seventeen hundreds, but no, that place had been significantly less comfortable. No. Crowley's flat, that made more sense. He had simply never gone home. He tried to sit up, but groaned, sinking down again, head pounding. The room was dark, but otherwise the angel suspected light would have hurt his eyes. Must have forgotten to sober up the night before. That made sense. Fallen asleep from the wine and not given the chance to get rid of it. This had happened before, but it had been centuries since the last time. With a frown and a grimace he concentrated, and the remnants of the wine left his body.

Feeling significantly better, he had the presence of mind to sense that he was not alone. He let his head slip to the side and was met with the welcome sight of a pile of red curls, a sharply curved nose, a long-fingered and elegant hand resting on a silky black shirt. Was there any sight more lovely? Aziraphale rolled over onto his side, so that he could rest his head on Crowley's chest, and feel the warmth of his skin through thin fabric. Some part of Crowley must be awake, because though his breath and pulse are slow, the hand moves to rest in white curls.

Aziraphale rests there for a while, eyes closed, not dozing, exactly, but rather meditatively focusing on the slow rise and fall of Crowley's chest, the minute and subconscious movements of the fingers in his hair. Whatever guilt he felt for falling for (hah!) Crowley, it was not enough. How could a feeling so soft and so pure be wrong, after all? Angels were made to love all God's creatures, and that was what he was doing. Did She even care, any more, for the small acts of defiance from Her angels? Crowley had, after all, once been an angel too. He was still one of Her creations, though the fall had twisted him.

For the first time in a long while, Aziraphale prayed. He was not his knees, his hands were not clasped, but he trusted Her to hear him or not without much regard for human ritual. Please, he thought, please reassure me that this is not as wrong as we have been told. We are made of love, and I am only sharing that love. Perhaps with enough love even a demon can be redeemed? I know your plans and ways are, well, ineffable, but I can't believe that this is wrong. He did not deserve your punishment, not this much of it, he only- He... Curiosity ought not to damn one for all eternity. He told me, when we first met, that he did not think angels were able to do a wrong thing, and I hope he was right, and if not. I hope You can forgive me. I hope You can forgive him. Uh, amen, and all that, he added, just for safety's sake. One never knew.

"Mmf," he heard someone say, someone whose head was not resting mere inches from his own.

Oh. 

Lucian pushed himself up on his elbows, the texture of a crinkled pillow edged in red lines on his cheek. He rubbed at his eyes, then looked at Crowley and Aziraphale.

"Morning," he said, quietly, so as not to wake Crowley, and ran a hand through long and seemingly perpetually tangled hair.

Aziraphale wondered whether he looked that out of it himself when he woke up.

"Good morning," he replied, though it was still dark out.

Lucian looked from Aziraphale to Crowley and back, some hint of pain flitting across his features, and leaving something quite like melancholy.

"Want me to leave?" he asked, quietly, and with a distinct undertone that was telling Aziraphale that he really didn't want to, as such, but understood that it might be better.

"Oh," he heard himself say, quite without any conscious intervention from his brain, "absolutely not, dear boy. More than enough room for both- well. For all three of us. And Crowley absolutely would hate for you to leave. No, it's nonsense. Stay."

And he reached a hand out, finding Lucian's, entwining them and resting them on Crowley's stomach. It felt almost like holding his own hand, just without the loop of sensory feedback.

"Thank you," Lucian said, a still somewhat sad smile on his lips, "I'm glad. We monsters need love, too."

The angel's features contorted into worry, which he suspected was undermined just a little by where his head rested and the hand that was halfway to falling down his face. Lucian smiled a smile Aziraphale usually used to disarm. Right.

With a soft whooshing sound, his wings unfurled themselves, taking they place they always held, though usually not on this plane. He spread his left wing out, so it covered all three of them, like the blanket that lay crumpled on the floor next to the bed, having been kicked away by someone at some point. His right wing rested awkwardly, curled, tip crushed to the floor, but the gesture of it was what counted. Lucian squeezed his hand.

"You know I meant to ask," Lucian said, extricating his hand from the angel's to run a finger over soft feathers, curious sparkle in all too familiar hazel eyes, "Crowley's a snake. What are you?"

Aziraphale frowned.

"Whatever do you mean?"

Lucian cocked his head, rather like a- ah. Or perhaps not. Curiously. Cocked his head curiously. 

"Like Crowley. Snake. And his fellow demons, whose names I've forgotten. Frog head. Chameleon man. Or do angels not do that?"

"Ah," Aziraphale said, "no, we rather don't. The whole animal aspect thing was- was a part of the Fall. What Hell does to you."

"Oh," said Lucian, and looked thoughtful. 

"Not," added Aziraphale, as though just having thought of a fun fact, "that the animal aspects or any of that is, in itself, evil. It was, originally, a punishment, but you know how much Crowley enjoys being a snake. And what a lovely serpent he makes."

Lucian hummed in agreement, but the angel could tell it still bothered him. It had to, hadn't it, despite centuries of knowing how his species was viewed, both by those who knew of their existence and those thinking them nothing more than scary stories.

"I did turn into a dove a few times. You know, to symbolize peace and dramatically fly over some sort of peace deal with a twig in my beak. Didn't really take to it, though, bird life. The flying is a lot harder than with these," he said, wriggling his wings a bit for emphasis.

"You looked very edible that way," Crowley said, without opening his eyes.

"Not, of course," he added, "that you don't now too. But in a different way."

"Crowley!" Aziraphale exclaimed, entirely failing to hide his blushing smile.

"He was also a giant flaming wheel covered in eyes a few times," Crowley added, "it was a pretty hot look."

\--

Lucian was in the bookshop. They were all in the bookshop. Surprisingly many other people were also in the bookshop. It was Saturday.

Crowley and Lucian were reading, seated in two of the comfy yet ornate chair littered around the bookshop, saving them from being sat on by undeserving customers. Well, Lucian was sitting, at any rate. Crowley sprawled. He was nearly horizontal in the chair, neck resting against the wooden arm rest in a way that looked deeply uncomfortable, lower back resting on the other, and his legs hanging over Lucian's lap. The demon wore some ludicrously expensive designer jeans with pre-made holes placed just right for Lucian to lean down to press a kiss to the nearest available bit of skin, should he want to.

Lucian was reading an old account of _la bête du Gévaudan_ out of solidarity, and, in part, for inspiration. Not that he particularly intended to terrorize villagers in Southern France, though, on one memorable occasion that included a vampire plot, he had, but he thought if, perhaps, he read enough old myths and legends he'd find some grain of truth. Some human invention or discovery that could help in his work. He hadn't had much success yet. On the side table next to him was a discarded copy of Polidori's _The Vampyre_, and a notebook open to a spread only containing a scribble of a wolf biting a bat while a snake looked on with heart shaped eyes. There were also several mugs that had, at one point, contained coffee.

The weather was nice enough that people were out and about, yet grey and unpleasant enough that most people, after about twenty minutes or so, felt the need to find a nice warm place to browse and hide from what was not so much rain as a very thick mist. Thus, the bookshop, usually as desolate as Aziraphale preferred it, was practically teeming with customers. There were at least ten of the bastards, all looking at his books, _touching_ them, and some even going so far as to consider purchasing them. Lucian could see the distaste and disapproval in Aziraphale's eyes from where he sat, the angel smiling aggressively at someone who looked like they were considering approaching the till with what looked, in all fairness, to be a fairly common copy of _Persuasion_.

"Learning anything good?" Crowley asked, without looking up from his copy of Vogue (Lucian hadn't asked).

"Mm," Lucian replied, "not terribly. To be fair, it's slow, my French is... not excellent."

Crowley made a sympathetic noise, and went back to his magazine. Lucian rested his book on Crowley's knees and leaned back, staring without focus at the light coming in through the shop window. What was he doing.

He did not have time, however, to get properly into his self doubt, because he overheard something. Lycan senses were better than human senses, especially, naturally, smell and hearing. This was a mixed blessing, and Lucian had been able to hear almost all things whispered about him behind his back. Which had, through the last eight centuries, added up. Sometimes whispers concerned how he looked, both positively and negatively. Sometimes they were just concerned, sensing, somehow, that he was not the same as the humans. And sometimes, like now, they were surprisingly homophobic.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to subtly look around, eyes landing, eventually, on a couple, surprisingly young to be so judgemental. They were looking, it seemed, at the way Crowley lay draped across Lucian, obvious distaste in their eyes, not hindered in the slightest when Lucian made eye contact with one of them. He nudged Crowley, moving his eyes between Crowley and the couple in lieu of pointing. Crowley's face went through a moment or two of confusion, and then transitioned into a sneer.

"Bastards," he muttered.

Then he turned so he face facing them, and made very deliberate eye contact, as much as he could behind his shades, at any rate, while he leaned over to kiss Lucian. All the nearby humans who saw him winced, but for most it was simply that it did not look like something a human spine would be able to do. Crowley's glasses slid down for a moment, and Lucian could see his eyes had gone fully yellow.

"Angeeel," Crowley said, loud enough to carry over the general din of muted conversations, and flopping back to his previous position, Lucian's hand holding onto his for a moment.

Aziraphale looked up, and, catching Crowley's eye (or, technically, lens), brightened immeasurably, and came over, abandoning the customer hopefully queueing. He leaned down to kiss Crowley, upside down, noses bumping into chins. Lucian, all the while, kept eye contact with the couple, smiling thinly and aggressively, a hand possessively on Crowley's knee, watching their increasing discomfort until they, with angry glares and disgusted faces, left the bookshop, ideally never to return. Neither he nor Crowley mentioned them to Aziraphale. 

The angel returned to the customer, informing him smugly that no, unfortunately, that particular volume was not for sale, no, it was reserved by a previous buyer, and had merely been misfiled. Aziraphale seemed to take great pleasure in refusing to sell his books, which, Lucian thought, might explain why the shop was still open after over a century, and not closed in favour or some sort of miniature library or other venture more suited to Aziraphale's lack of enthusiasm for ever actually selling anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took longer than expected. Was going to write this after work today but, having been awake for 16 hours on one and a half hours of sleep, I needed a seven hour nap first. And now it's fucking five am and i have uni in five hours. Delightful. Fuck. Anyway. Also I realise I completely forgot to address that one thing from six chapters earlier that i meant to. Oops.


	18. Carpe Serpens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silver, ink, blood, memories, words, loves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck it's been nearly two weeks I'm so sorry

"What the fuck are you doing?"

Crowley had just come in, tossing her coat dramatically in the vaguest direction of the hook on the wall, where it, nevertheless, hung itself neatly, turning around the corner into the living room at an angle sharp enough to have her hair whipping around her, and Lucian couldn't even be bothered to look at her entrance. Or the dress she was wearing, which had two very high slits paired with an obscenely deep v. No, instead of appreciating her, as he should, he was hunched over, appearing to be stabbing himself repeatedly.

"Experiment," Lucian growled through clenched fangs.

Little puffs of steam or smoke were rising from the inside of his left underarm, which he was hacking at with some contraption made up of a silver needle, some thread, a pencil and duct tape. Ah. She flung herself down onto the sofa next to him, fluidly moving to lean across him to get a closer look. In neat dots of mostly ink partially blood was a circle. Around that were two additional circles, or most of them, anyway, but tighter, tapering towards one end, slightly expanding on the other.

"Should you," asked Crowley, eyeing Lucian's grimace of pain, his moonshot eyes and grinding fangs, "be shoving silver into yourself? Isn't it a bit unpleasant?"

Lucian growled.

"Bit," he said, voice tight, "yes."

He did not stop.

"Long as you know what you're doing," Crowley said, with a shrug.

She pressed a kiss to his cheek, and slithered towards the kitchen to get herself some coffee. It had been a long, but fruitful day. Her temptation had gone well; convincing an author that getting their novel made into a film would be worth the near total destruction of anything but the basic plot and characters of their masterpiece, all social commentary completely removed, everything softened for a wider audience no longer used to art being confrontational. The work hadn't required dressing up, or seduction, and she had, for the duration, worn essentially her normal clothes. The dress was entirely for Lucian's benefit. Not that he seemed to be appreciating it yet.

Crowley placed a coffee cup by her machine, and scowled at it until it dutifully roared into action, producing, from an empty pod receptacle, and without the intervention of water or electricity, a truly superb little cupful of espresso. Crowley picked it up, sipped it, and squinted at the machine to indicate that while this was acceptable, it was still on thin fucking ice.

Wandering back to Lucian, she settled, this time, on the armrest of the sofa, partially blocking the light, and crossing her legs in such a way that the maximum amount of skin of her legs was revealed. Lucian, however, remained distracted by his targeted self stabbing. Crowley could see, now, what it was. An ouroboros encircling what she assumed would become the full moon. Her heart did a funny motion she wasn't sure it was meant to.

"I like it," she told him, voice only the faintest bit choked.

She kept watching as he continued for another while, finishing the outlines and going over them again, adding a scaly pattern to the snake and soft if rather pointillist shading to the moon. It was rather impressive work, she thought, but then, given several hundred years in hiding, she supposed he had had ample time to master most skills. 

Finally, he put the needle contraption down, and wiped the tattoo clean. The skin surrounding it was an angry red, with faint silver cracks in the skin like veins spreading out, swollen around the dotted lines.

"What's the experiment part?" she asked, as he cleared up the equipment, wiping little spatters of ink off the coffee table.

"Silver," Lucian said, voice still muffled, just a bit, from the fangs.

He frowned, closing his eyes for a moment. When he blinked them open again they were back to a human hazel colour, and when he spoke it became clear the fangs were gone too.

"See, they don't stay. Tattoos. Took me a few attempts before I figured out why. The change, it. Well, it resets the body, somehow. Until I cut the skin off, my brand stayed through my transformations, remaining underneath the fur, just warped and distorted. But ink bled out, somehow, in the process. So. Trying to use a silver needle, see if that can affect the permanence. If the toxins can, I don't know, scar in a more effective way."

Crowley had numerous questions about this, including _brand???_, _I cut off the skin_, and some less important follow ups about the possible tattoo subjects. About the two first she also had a lot of emotions. Still. Still.

Lucian flexed the muscles in his arm, the redness already almost gone, the swelling disappeared. Crowley raised her eyebrows, then stroked careful fingers over the design, and then over Lucian's face. Her fingers brushed his lips and he kissed her knuckles.

"What made made you, well... Why this? Why not something you've tried to ink into your skin before?"

"Budapest," Lucian replied enigmatically.

He shifted, tugging at Crowley till she was sitting down in the sofa properly, and then crawled and moved until his head was laying in her lap, his cheek pressed up against her flat belly. She could feel the heat radiating off him, and it felt delicious even to her human skin.

"Remember I got shot?"

"Vividly."

"Well. The reason I got shot, the reason I didn't, you know, duck, was that I thought I recognized the death dealer."

"Yeah? Old friend? Well, foe, I suppose. I'm not so good at the distinction, as I think you've gathered."

"Hah," Lucian says, "not quite. She, well. She looked remarkably like Sonja. Not completely, but, well. It's been about six centuries since I saw her face, and this one was, well. It was close, so close. She might have been her sister."

He let out a soft breath, and was quiet for a moment. Seemingly subconsciously he ran a finger over the etchings on the amulet he always wore. Crowley wanted to say something. Crowley remained quiet.

"So I've been thinking about her. Sonja, not mystery death dealer. Though she was, you know. A mysterious death dealer vampire princess."

"Sounds sexy," Crowley said, joke in her voice, grin not quite reaching her eyes.

"Oh, she was. Very. I've been thinking about the time we had together, and what- and what happened. The time that was wasted, the years we could have had. Anyway, I realised, you know. Carpe, well, serpens."

"How sweet."

"But, you know, in case this experiment works, in case it stays, but we... don't..."

"We might not," Crowley said, hand on Lucian's shoulder stiffening almost imperceptibly.

"We might not," Lucian agreed, humming a happy sound as Crowley's fingers card through his hair, rubbing tiny circles into his scalp.

"But I've a back up plan."

He fished a folded up piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Crowley. She unfolded it to see the full moon remains, but replacing the serpent is a thick black band, and emanating from it are complicated geometrical patterns growing fainter and more scarce the farther from the moon they get. Like an inverted eclipse. It's rather beautiful.

"It's a good back up plan," Crowley admitted, "it's lovely. Hopefully unnecessary, but lovely."

"_You're_ lovely," she added.

He kissed her stomach through the thin fabric of her dress, and she can feel soft lips and prickly beard against skin.

"You going to check, then? Go all wolfy?"

Lucian shook his head.

"Wait about an hour, I think, be sure it's completely healed."

"Sensible," Crowley agreed.

"Would you like to, in the meantime, you know- seize me?"

"I would, in fact, like that very much, I think," Lucian said, and seemed, at last, to be paying attention to how much of Crowley's thighs the dress revealed.

-

It was several hours before Lucian got as far as changing. They were spent naked, sweating, entwined on first the sofa, later on the bed, and, briefly, on Crowley's desk. It was time, they both agreed, well spent.

"Go on, then," Crowley urged, nudging Lucian with a boneless arm, "you've got me all curious. Never been one to resist knowledge, me."

Lucian groaned. The moon was barely a sliver outside, as far from full as it could be, and summoning the wolf took more effort. Still, who was he to deny his serpentine lover anything she asked for?

The change rolled over him in slow waves. He had not bothered to get up off the bed, and it creaked threateningly beneath him as his mass increased. The fur itched as it grew out, covering the inked skin. He was unsure whether that was good or bad.

Crowley moved closer, resting her head on his now significantly hairier chest.

"Good boy," she murmured, and he could feel her grin into his skin at his growled response.

He remained that way for a few minutes. It was a tiring process, the change, even if he at no point was doing anything but laying down. Still. The cuddling was nicer with his softer and more sensitive human skin, and so he let the wolf melt away, shrinking back down to his usual size.

"So?" Crowley asked, pushing herself up on her elbow.

He lifted his arm to show where the ink remained, though a touch less pitch black than it had been, and the tiniest bit warped from stretching and shrinking with his arm. Crowley leaned over, pressing her elbow into his solar plexus and making him wince, and kissed the image.

"Let's hope it's an omen," she said, "a good one."

"Oof," Lucian replied, "yes. Omen good. For us. Probably."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep catching myself drifting into present tense and I've reread it a few times but traces might remain, in which case I apologise.  
Also the document I'm writing this fic in is over a hundred pages now. What the fuck. When will I write a hundred pages of originaler material, huh? Why won't this shit ass brain let me do that.  
Was speculating on starting a new fic, just vanilla ineffable husbands as it were, sorry wolf puppy, but the flip flopped version. Angelic Crowley, demonic Aziraphale. Been thinking more about it since seeing Michael Sheen be a straight up adorable serial killer in Prodigal Son, so, maybe on tuesday after the second episode I'll be inspired enough to start. Bad news for me rturning to the previously established update schedule on this thing, though. Would anyone read that?


	19. Nolite timere, angeli sumus, et in pace venimus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angeli lupum in librariam tabernam visitant.

"Where is he?" the angel asked, patches of gold glinting in the cold, impersonal light of Heaven.

The other one frowned, looking at some magical approximation of a map of Europe, slightly translucent, hovering in the air. There was a glowing dot on it, moving glacial slow.

"On the move," the other angel replied, frowning, "headed west, it seems. Away from London."

"Sensible," the first angel said, "that place is terrible. Hell-ish, literally."

The second angel made a non-committal noise.

"Good tailors."

\--

Aziraphale was, indeed, moving west. As far as Lucian was aware, he was headed to Wales to do some angelic business or other. They had to do that, occasionally, both Crowley and Aziraphale. Leave to do various good or bad deeds, influence certain key people for their respective sides. They rarely, however, seemed to leave central Europe, or even Britain, despite apparently being the only representatives of their sides on Earth. Which seemed either kind or unfair to the rest of the planet, who pressumably could go about their business without any supernatural intervention. Well, without angels and demons, at the very least. They were hardly the only supernatural creatures around, as he himself was living proof of.

In a fit of wildly out of character reasonable business practise, Aziraphale had taken to asking Lucian to look after the bookshop while he was away, including keeping it open. He speculated that this was some sort of way to communicate that he trusted him, but it did feel a little like having to earn his place in this weird little triangular love configuration they currently found themselves in. Not that there was a lot of work in it. He had to be in the general vicinity of the register and front of the shop while it was open, to dissuade any attempted purchases. This could, however, be combined with the research he was still, somewhat half heartedly doing. In the last few months he had had access to a lot of terribly old books on the occult, but he had yet to find anything particularly useful in any of them. No secret account of any previous instance of a vampire werewolf hybrid, no new and convincing way to gain an advantage in their centuries long war. It was all rather disappointing.

"Here," Crowley said, interrupting his train of thought with a mug of coffee pressed into his hands.

"Thanks," Lucian said, taking a sip, burning his tongue and tried not to visibly wince while Crowley smirked at him, just barely.

Crowley made a grand gesture, as if to indicate that it was nothing, looked around to check whether the coast was clear, and let himself collapse down into a small version of his snake form. Lucian bent down to let Crowley coil himself around his wrist, wrapping his tail around the coffee mug.

"Ah," Lucian said, "and here I thought you were selflessly bringing me caffeine. The betrayal. Very demonic."

Crowley hissed, a tiny little sound, and nudged the inside of his forearm with his head, as if to say that he should have known what he was getting into before he committed.

"Cruel but fair," Lucian said, his voice kept low, as he had the feeling there was a customer or two lurking somewhere in the shop.

It was early yet, but it was November, which was not the ideal time to be a purveyor of incredibly specific and arcane books. Exam season always lead to an influx of students who were very happy merely to look at the books at they needed without pressure to spend actual money. It was something Aziraphale quite liked, but which made Lucian jumpy. He kept coming across them sitting quietly in a corner with stacks of rare volumes, notebooks and thermo-cups filled with increasingly cold coffee. It wasn't worry that they would spill coffee, there were enough magic people in the shop to fix that, usually, but that- that was the problem. There was rarely a conversation he had with either Crowley or Aziraphale that didn't allude to something or other beyond the understanding of even the most enthusiastic theology students. And Lucian felt sure that they would, one day, be overheard. And found out. And there would be humans again, with torches and spears and crossbows, and those bolts stung like Hell, silver tipped or not. Actually, come to think of it, the humans might have guns and vivisection equipment, and that was a lot worse.

_Whasss the matter?_ Crowley hissed, just barely loud enough for Lucian's inhumanly good hearing to catch.

"Humans," Lucian muttered, and took a sip of his coffee which had somehow gone from boiling hot to unpleasantly cool in what he estimated to have been maybe thirty seconds of mildly spiralling paranoia.

Crowley had abandoned the mug now that it no longer served as his personal heat source, and crawled up Lucian's sleeve to rest between his neck and the collar of his shirt, flicking his tail so as to make Lucian's hair into an artful disguise. People got weird about snakes in shops. Which Lucian might have gotten too, to be fair, had not the snake in question been his lover. 

"Don't trust them," he elaborated after a solid ten minutes of what could be described as brooding, though not by him.

"They don't tend to look kindly on, well, my people."

_Ah. Been the victim of some misssssguided witch huntsss?_

Lucian made a noise of mixed agreement.

"More like a number of very well guided vampire hunts. Turns out wooden stakes shot with crossbows feel pretty bad even if you're not a vampire. And arrows. And spears. Thrown knives. But it's not so much that any more. It's this modern world. You know what they do to the things they don't understand. It's rarely good."

Crowley made a noise of serpentine sympathy. 

_Yesss. I undersstand. Lossst my corporation in ssssimilar situationsss, once or twice.._

"Oh," said Lucian, then "oh! You died? Shit. Shit, that's- Huh."

_Yessss. Inconvenient. Had to do three monthsss of paperwork before I could be issued a new one._

Lucian didn't know quite what to say to that. Surely dying would be quite traumatic, even if it wasn't permanent? But even more, he wondered...

"Hold on, did you use to look different? Have a different bo- corporation?"

Crowley didn't answer for a moment, perhaps thinking it over.

_My hair wass curlier,_ he said at last, but any additional details he had to add to that were lost, as two rather suspicious looking people burst into the shop.

They were not suspicious looking in the traditional sense. They wore suits, and rather nice ones at that, though there was something unnatural about braving the rainy London weather in cream coloured suits and still looking perfectly unscathed. But they felt suspicious. Felt supernatural, somehow, and not in a reassuring way. One was a short black woman with cropped hair and a smear of gold across her face that did not look like paint, and the other was a tall white man with purple eyes and an unsettling smile. Said smile fell, however, when he noticed Lucian.

"Is that? You said he was... Out," he demanded of the woman, who in response made the universal I don't know it's not my fault sort of gesture.

He seemed to be American, which might have been what caused Lucian's suspicion, although the fact that they had entered the shop through a flash of light rather than the more traditional door option most people went for didn't help. Crowley had dived down further into Lucian's shirt, wrapping himself around his torso, the small scales tickling just a little. So, if Crowley wanted to go more unnoticed than usual, that meant these were angels. Which explained why they dressed like a more current and corporate version of Aziraphale. Right. Shit.

After some more heated whispering the two of them approached the register, where Lucian was trying hard to emulate the concept of a polite customer service person. It had been a good six hundredish years since he last had to do that, and he had never been very good at it. Had he not been secretly dating his boss slash owner's daughter he would probably have been whipped more than he was.

"Hello," he said, trying for pleasant and ending up closer to demanding, "how can I help you?"

They stared at him.

"Aziraphale? Is that you?" the woman asked, who was English, or at least sounded like she was.

"Err. Hello, yes. Aziraphale here. Long... Long time no see?" he hazarded, and then regretted it through a pained smile.

If that was what they believe, then he needed to confirm their suspicions. Probably? Or tell them he had left. But from the sound of it, they had not expected to find him here, and had appeared out of nothing, so pretending to be an employee would probably not be sensible at this point. Not without being more suspicious than he needed to. He wished Crowley would whisper some helpful advice to him, but the demon contributed nothing more than another thing to hide.

"What have you done to yourself?" the man demanded, grimacing, "I mean, not that your style was ever quite up to scratch, but these are new depths, Aziraphale. Did you have some sort of accident?"

Shit. Fuck. Right.

"Yes, just, ah, a, uh, new strategy, you see. To try to sway humans to our side, keep them good and all. I am trying to appeal to the youth. The ones that are at high risk of being swept up in, ah, devil worship and such. Err, goths, I believe they call themselves these days. Not to be confused with the old germanic peoples. You know. Running around in black, looking like demons, playing with their dragons and dungeons and such. I am trying to seem more relateable, you see, to them. To make sure they're, ah, good."

He highly doubted that Aziraphale was familiar with dungeons and dragons, despite the fact that there were books involved, but the Heavenly emissaries surely wouldn't know that, right? Were christians still angry about that? Who knew. He tried to smile as reassuringly and Aziraphale-like at the angels as he could. It came out more like a pained grimace, but the angels didn't seem to notice.

"Weren't you supposed to do a blessing in Wales today?" the woman asked, squinting at him, gold smear glinting in the light.

"Oh- oh was that today? Goodness! I had it put down as tomorrow. I will get to it as soon as I can, let me assure you."

The smile he tried to keep in place was making his face ache, and he tried not to dwell on the implications of an inability to comfortably smile for all of five minutes. And trying to sound like Aziraphale was, well, trying. He felt sure that, had snakes the ability to laugh, Crowley would currently be doing so.

"But tell me, is there anything I can help you with here? I'm sure you didn't come for the books?"

The man's eyes widened, and he glanced meaningfully at the woman, who frowned and shrugged at him.

"Just checking in," the man said with a forced smile, and clapped Lucian on the shoulder, "we'll be on out way. Keep up the good work."

The woman squinted suspiciously at him one last time, and as they disappeared in another flash of light Lucian could hear their heated whispered argument start back up. Shit. He unbuttoned his shirt just enough to stick his hand down and pull a complaining Crowley out. The little snake hissed at him.

"Could you?" he asked, gesturing the concept of being vaguely human shaped with his free hand.

Crowley hissed again, but had the decency to grow some limbs and hair anyway. Lucian, meanwhile, located the closest armchair and flopped down into it.

"What was that about, Crowley? They- They were from Upstairs, right? Aziraphale's colleagues?"

"Yeah," Crowley confirmed, settling down on the arm-rest of Lucian's chair, to better keep their conversation reasonably quiet.

Lucian leaned to the side enough for him to rest his head against Crowley's side and sighed. His jeans had just the faintest hint of snakeskin pattern, and one day he was going to ask him about that. But then, with his furlined jackets he might not have that much of a moral high ground when it came to that sort of thing. He had owned at least a few lined with wolf fur at some point.

"Why were they here?"

Crowley didn't reply immediately, his hand finding it's way into Lucian's hair. Felt good, felt nice.

"Don't know. But they seemed to know Aziraphale wouldn't be here, which would suggest they were here to snoop around, yeah? Terrible impression, by the way. I wish the angel had installed security cameras like I told him to so I could show him."

Lucian growled, but his heart wasn't in it.

"But I don't know what they'd be after. Angel's a good one, can't imagine he'd done something wrong."

"Well," said Lucian, "he's done you, and you're wrongness incarnate."

"Fair," Crowley agreed, after making a choked little noise, "all-right, they might be suspicious that there's something going on there, though we've been friends for six millennia and they've not caught onto us yet."

"Do you think they'll expect Aziraphale to look like me the next time they see him?"

Lucian looked up at Crowley to see him grinning like an idiot.

"Oh, oh, we've got to make that happen. That would be... That would be so good."

"Mm, that your dream, huh? Combine us? Look too different for you still?"

"And deprive myself of having both of you? Never. Make you switch clothes for a laugh? Very much so."

Lucian briefly tried to picture himself in all those light colours, those clothes so out of date Lucian would have felt embarrassed to wear them in the fifteenth century. He shuddered. Not to say anything bad of Aziraphale, but his sense of style was not compatible with the sort of slightly punk slightly goth mostly just generically tough looking style vibe Lucian had built for his pack. 

"You know, I think I'm good."

"Agreed," Crowley said, and kissed his hair.

"We'll tell Aziraphale when he gets back tomorrow? He'll know what to do?"

"Yes, and definitely not. But we might as well ask. Might know what those fuckers are up to."

Crowley made what Lucian could only describe as a full body grimace.

"Hate that prick Gabriel. So slimy. Reminds me of a couple of demonic colleagues of mine."

"He did not seem... great. I would have expected angels to be more... I don't know. Angelic? Not that Aziraphale was what I expected angels to be either, but at least he's, you know, nice. Unless you're a customer, but that's understandable. And the looks, too. Don't know what it is, but Aziraphale just looks a bit more like how I pictured angels."

"Ah," said Crowley, "there's a reason for that. He spent quite some time in the renaissance and baroque posing for painters. So your impressions of angelicness are literally him. 'S why they're all, you know, blond."

"Oh," said Lucian, and tried not to focus on how many of those paintings were nude paintings.

Though, to be fair, Aziraphale was, if the face was anything to go by, likely to look like a slightly softer and more rounded version of himself, anyway. Hmm. Nope. He focused on visualising a nude Crowley instead. Better visuals.

"Did you? Ever? Of demons, I suppose, but still?"

"Oh, yes," said Crowley, and spent the rest of the day utterly refusing to elaborate or show Lucian any of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The owl keeps telling me I should be practising latin instead of writing fanfic, so have some grammarwise questionable and to most people deeply unhelpful titles and summaries. Anyway. Not abandoned! Even though it's been two and a half months! Go me! Come yell at me on tumblr @indiasierrabravo to ensure I write more and keep to non dead languages. also, yes, I'm aware Uriel doesn't wear the like. Gold paint or whatever on her face when she appears on Earth, but I think it's a rad design, so she's keeping it.


	20. Interlude III: Crowley's Dream Scenario

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a fluffy dream sequence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really very intended to have to have a chapter up for the full moon because it seemed important to me when i decided i needed to while a bit drunk at 5 am last night, but I have not started it yet so here is an artsy interlude oops. Apologies for the size mess. If you'd like to look at it at a sensible scale here's the link to it on my blog: indiasierrabravo.tumblr.com/post/75169973177/for-this


	21. Are Angels Also Saints?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More suspicious angelic activity.

The rain pounded against the window of the train as it rattled eastward, obscuring the landscape beyond, and the multitudes of sheep trying to find shelter under uncooperative trees. The chill seeped in through the windows, trying its best to worm its way under the angel's coat, to make him shiver, but Aziraphale had lived on this island for more than a millennia, and had come prepared. He had tea. It's wasn't, when he bought it, particularly good tea, but he had, through his angelic nature, inspired it to transform into a particularly nice spiced herbal tea with just enough of a bite to remind him of his favourite demon, and so he remained utterly cozy. It even, helpfully, refilled itself when it almost emptied, and remained at perfect temperature, steaming gently, a fact that had caused the young lady sitting across from him to frown in suspicion several times now. They were, after all, two hours in.

The blessing had gone well. Blessings generally did, being the definition of good, and all. But this child, sorely wanted by his mothers, would have an excellent rest of his childhood now, whatever horrors lay in his short but dramatic past. It was satisfying. It felt good. They didn't always, his assignments. Not all his blessings felt as deserved or as meaningful, though they must be. It was, after all, part of the Plan. And try as he might to eff it, it remained stubbornly ineffable, and that was just something he had to accept. It was fine. He trusted. He had faith.

He felt good. He felt like he ought to be spreading joy to the world, and decided, almost without his conscious getting involved at all, that everyone in this train would get home on time, and suddenly discover they hadn't forgotten their umbrella after all, and find just enough coins in an unused pocket to get themselves a hot drink when they got off at their station. Looking around, he beamed at all the humans he could see, who mostly failed to notice. 

"What are you looking at?" the young woman across from him demanded, a little more aggressively than he felt was warranted.

"Oh, I'm sorry, my dear, I've only been trying to work out what book you're reading. I didn't recognize it."

Her glare did not let up.

"I run a bookshop, you see," he added with what he intended to be a friendly smile, "can't help wanting to know what people read."

The woman lifted the book up to let him see the cover. It had what looked like a rat skull with a crown, but her hand obscured the title. Then, before he could ask, she reached into her backpack, pulling out a discman, and putting on the headphones, all while maintaining pointed eye contact. He gave her an apologetic smile, and spent the following minutes staring out of the window.

They were only about half an hour from London when, suddenly, he felt a shiver running down his spine from the base of his skull. It was a feeling which usually meant some ethereal being had just materialised nearby. He frowned, and looked around. He could spot no familiar faces, nor any demonic ones, but he felt, well, _observed_. Everyone in the train carriage, though, were human, he could feel as much, and if there were some demon or angel watching him, he didn't want to risk them knowing he was onto them by using his angelic powers to figure out who it was. It was, unfortunately, generally a two way street. 

The feeling let up after about five minutes, as they pulled into the penultimate station, but did not disappear entirely. He peered out the window at the stressed travellers, all fighting with their umbrellas, obscuring faces, but there was something, some glint of cream and gold and a familiar face, before that too disappeared behind an unfolding mass of fabric. As the train pulled away he could feel their eyes on him, even as he struggled to locate them.

-

When Aziraphale returned to the bookshop he found it empty, with a sign on the door saying Closed For Lunch in streaky print, and, underneath that, For Five Fucking Hours?!?! scrawled in shaky ballpoint. Ah. Well, at least no books had been sold. He checked inside, just to make sure they hadn't returned and simply forgotten to remove the sign, but they were nowhere to be found. To Crowley's, then.

No one answered when Aziraphale knocked, not even the second time. Letting his angelic essence seep out through the cracks of his corporation, just a little, he reached out to feel for other ethereal beings, in case Crowley had colleagues over, but there was just the familiar shape of Crowley's essence; vaguely serpentine, though with more horns, eyes and wings than snakes traditionally had. Safe, then. He smiled at the door, and, knowing what Crowley would want, the door obligingly opened, letting him in. It slid closed behind him, locking itself, and exuding satisfaction with a job well done. If Crowley would not treat his flat right, Aziraphale would make it feel appreciated as best he could.

He found Crowley and Lucian quite quickly. They were on the sofa, asleep. Lucian was naked, laying draped over the sofa on his stomach, hair entirely hiding his face, an arm draping over the edge, knuckles brushing the floor. Crowley was on top of him, in snake form, draped in a loose spiral, distributed to best take advantage of his living heat source. It was quite sweet. Aziraphale went to the kitchen, making no attempt at being anything but noisy, wanting to give them the chance to wake up and perhaps put some clothes on before they talked.

Crowley's kitchen was like a show home, a new show home, with clean minimalist counters, and almost nothing behind the cupboard doors. It had gotten a little more lived in since Lucian had been staying there, given the werewolf needed to eat, but it still had the feeling of being more for decoration than anything else. Aziraphale found a mug (red, with a devil's tail for a handle, a gift he had given Crowley, which the demon had poorly pretended not to love), a bag of his favourite tea (the only kind Crowley kept, despite not, himself, enjoying it), and put the kettle on. By the time his tea was steeped, he could hear movement coming from the living room. He went to say hello.

Crowley and Lucian had not, as he had hoped, gotten dressed and ready for a conversation about the possibilities of occult or celestial spies. Crowley had shifted back to human, but he was still naked, still on top of Lucian. In him, too, it looked from the movements, and the noises they made. Crowley undulated his hips in that boneless way unique to him, and for a few seconds Aziraphale watched, hypnotised. A blush started in his cheeks, and spread, until he shook his head decisively, turning on his heel and quietly making his way to the study. He would give them their privacy.

He settled in the terribly uncomfortable throne chair Crowley insisted on, having pulled the first book he could find. It was a thick, heavy, coffee table sort of book, covered in images of celestial bodies. Crowley did like to admire his own work. Aziraphale smiled. He took a sip of his tea, and opened the book to a section on Alpha Orionis.

-

"Fuck! Angel!"

The shout shook Aziraphale out of his focus, which had been entirely on the Andromeda galaxy. He turned, rather startled, to see Crowley standing in the doorway, now properly dressed. His hair, though, stuck up at odd angles, despite the attempt he had clearly made at putting it up in a sort of half bun. There was also a smear of, well, _something_ on the side of his neck, which Aziraphale resolutely did not think about.

"How long have you been here?" Crowley demanded.

"Oh, err, you were sleeping when I came in, and then, by the time I'd made the tea, you were, ah, occupied, and so-"

"You've been here three hours?"

"Goodness! Has it really been that long? It's quite fascinating, this book, I can see why you like it."

Crowley smiled fondly, walking over and leaning over the back of the chair, slipping his arms around Aziraphale's neck and kissing his cheek. Aziraphale turned, capturing Crowley's lips in his own. He was fairly certain he could taste Lucian on Crowley's tongue, but he found he didn't mind. Good. Excellent. Sharing was a virtue, and he, an angel, ought to be the most virtuous of them all. But perhaps less self satisfied about it. Crowley moved from the back of the chair, shoving it to the side slightly, so he had room to awkwardly and not entirely comfortably straddle Aziraphale's lap, all while maintaining lip contact. Some part of Aziraphale registered footsteps that approached, paused for a moment, and then continued on.

"How was your trip?" Crowley asked, leaning back to properly see Aziraphale's face.

"Oh! Yes, I wanted to talk to you about that. Bit rainy, but the blessing went very well. But the strangest thing happened on the train home! I think I saw-"

"An angel?" Crowley asked, brows crinkling into a frown.

"What? Yes! My dear, how did you know?"

Crowley's face settled into a serious and worried thing, one of his hand coming up to Aziraphale's cheek. He leaned into it, eyebrows rising in encouragement.

"Angels came to the shop," he said.

"What? Darling, are you quite all right? Did they see you? What happened?"

"Nah, I was a snake at the time, don't think they noticed. Were too bewildered by Lucian, I think. He tried to reassure them he was you. Love the puppy, but terrible actor."

There was a noise from down the hall, as if something falling onto the floor, followed by muted swearing.

"Who was it? Did you see?"

"Uriel and Gabriel, I'm pretty sure. Gabriel definitely. What a prick."

Aziraphale made a sound meant to indicate that while he couldn't say any such thing about his higher ups, he didn't exactly disagree.   
"What did they want?"

Crowley's fingers fussed with Aziraphale's hair, fluffing up his curls for a moment before he replied.

"Don't know, exactly. But I'm pretty sure they didn't expect you to be there."

"But," said Aziraphale, "why would they come there if they knew? Surely, if they would like to speak to me that's not the way to do it. Did they, perhaps, leave a note?"

"They did not, no," Crowley said, with poorly restrained amusement.

He leaned in and kissed Aziraphale, just soft and quick and closed lips, but it still made Aziraphale's heart double down on the unnecessary beating.

"I think they were there specifically because you weren't. To, you know, snoop around."

"They what? No! No they couldn't have! That's not angelic at all!" Aziraphale insisted.

His bosses wouldn't do that, would they? Gabriel might not be, well, the angel he got on with the best, but that sort of behaviour was unacceptable! He wouldn't do that. No. No.

"Angel..." Crowley said, with that familiar mixture of fondness and exasperation.

"Surely you know by now that you're the only truly good angel?"

"I-" Aziraphale said, and paused.

That was just blatantly untrue, wasn't it? He had done a lot of very unangelic things throughout his time on Earth. Crowley, for example, several times, the evening before he left for Wales.

"I'm really not," he concluded.

"Angel, listen to me," Crowley said, grabbing his face in both hands, "you are. Being down here, it's made you better. But. But that's not my point. My point is they're looking into you. It's not long since I had a couple colleagues checking in on me, either, and it's only a year since the time before, it's usually less often than that, at least in person. I think... I think they might suspect. About, you know, us."

"Oh," said Aziraphale, "oh dear."

-

Crowley was laying on his bed, soft light streaming in through the window, bathing the three of them in unseasonably warm noon sunshine. There were hands on his body, fingers running over his skin, soft lips on him, around him, little kisses to the insides of his thighs and to the side of his neck and jaw. Two faces, similar and entirely different at the same time, looking at him, full of love. His hands found their way to grasp at both his lovers, pulling them closer, until they were both pressing kisses to his face, till he was basking in their love. He was just about to tell them how much he loved them, how glad he was that they were both his, when the roof opened up. This was unexpected, especially giving that there were at least three flats above his, whose owners, pressumably, would not like being magicked into nothing. The sun had gone, now, too, and a crack on thunder sounded as rain began to fall. Perhaps the humans were right about the acid rain thing, because every drop that hit his skin sizzled, stung, and burnt. 

"Crowley, no!" Aziraphale or Lucian or both shouted, and as he raised his hand up he could see that the drops of rain were burning right through him.

Someone must have blessed the rain, he thought, feeling irrationally calm as the holy water turned him into a melting mess of sulphur, as less and less of him remained and hands grasped uselessly at him, and behind the clouds above a terrible holy light shone brighter than an up close super nova.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally managed to like. Figure out some plot and plot solutions before getting to the relevant chapter today and I am incredibly proud of myself for that. Now I just got to write it. It's got an incredibly good and fun moment that I am deeply looking forward to writing.


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